


The Sparrow and the Songbird

by Minkel23



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Attempted rape shown, Ballet, Ben secretly loved Rey, But never told her, Death from Cancer, Dual Timeline, F/M, Love Letters, Mentions of Cancer, Modern AU, Poetry, Rey and Ben were childhood friends, Romeo and Juliet retelling, Slow Burn, consensual sex between teenagers shown, description of physical violence, flashbacks to child abuse, from a twitter prompt, reylo prompts, so many mysteries, what happened at the stream?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:41:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22664929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minkel23/pseuds/Minkel23
Summary: She isn’t sure what time it is when she hears the car, pulling up into the long drive towards the house. Isn’t sure how late it is when she sees Ben emerge from the vehicle, looking at her frantically.Isn’t sure how long she sits when she sees Ben’s face fall, once he sees in her eyes that he’s missed her, that his mother has gone without him.Isn’t sure how long it takes her to walk towards him, once he’s dropped to his knees in the grass, his head in his hands.Isn’t sure how long it takes her to wrap him in her arms, to whisper comfort into his ears.Isn’t sure how long they sit, joined together in their grief, before her mind pulls at her consciousness, like a thread being pulled on a blanket, reminding her of just one thing.He loves her.From Reylo Prompts:"When Rey helps her lifelong neighbor Leia clean out her attic, Rey comes across dozens of letters her childhood best friend, Ben, never sent her."With angsty bonus of: "Ben has an upcoming wedding... to someone else."
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1063
Kudos: 1847
Collections: Reylo Prompt Fills (@reylo_prompts)





	1. The First Letter

**Author's Note:**

> So, I saw this prompt back in November and was very taken with the idea, so I bashed this out in between other works over the last three months. 
> 
> Major character death from cancer (not Reylo) in the opening chapter, so if this is something that triggers you, please do not read.

Rey finds the first letter the day Leia dies.

She’s in the attic, frantically shifting through boxes, when she stumbles over an old shop mannequin and falls to the ground, knocking open a wooden chest. For a moment she sits, rubbing her arm where it hit the ground, wondering if this day could get any worse and then thinking of the woman downstairs and realising, with an aching thud, that it probably will.

Leia’s dying.

Actually dying.

Rey takes a deep breath, trying to steady her racing nerves. She can’t fall apart. Not here, not now. Leia is counting on her, depending on her, and Rey can’t let her down.

No, not can’t.  _ Won’t _ . Rey won’t let her down.

Not when this might be the last thing she ever does for her. Her, this woman who has been like a mother to her. 

Dusting herself off, Rey stands, ignoring the overturned chest in the corner. She goes back to the boxes of photographs she’d been rifling through, old black and white images of friends gone by. Rey smiles at the pictures of Han, one arm wrapped around Lando, the other around Luke, a grin on his face. She smiles at the pictures of Maz, working behind her bar in Takodana. She even smiles at the picture of Anakin, only a small boy in this image, sitting on the knee of his mother. 

She smiles at them, but she puts them aside all the same, because Leia doesn’t want these pictures. No. Leia, confused and clearly in the final hours of her life, has asked to see a picture of her mothers. One of Padme, the mother she never knew, and one of Breha, the mother who raised her.

She’d been distressed in her bed as she tried to relay what she wanted to Rey, who clutched at her hand and looked to Maz for help. But Maz had been just as confused as Rey, just as lost, and the cancer nurse who’d been hired to care for Leia went to inject more morphine.

‘No,’ Leia had begged, and Rey had put a hand on the nurse’s shoulder, stopping her. 

‘What is it?’ Rey whispered into Leia’s ear, and she watched as Leia’s eyes rolled in her head before trying to focus on the girl beside her.

‘The attic,’ Leia had murmured. ‘In a box. Please.’

‘What’s in the attic?’ Maz instantly asked.

‘Just... old bits and pieces,’ Rey shrugged, trying to remember. It had been years since she’d been in the attic. ‘Her mother’s dresses. Family heirlooms. Photographs. Some of Ben’s stuff.’

At her son’s name, Leia gave Rey’s hand a weak squeeze, and Rey squeezed it back gently. ‘He’s coming, I promise, he’s coming,’ she said fervently. ‘I called him yesterday and he hopped on the first flight. He’ll be here real soon, okay?’

But Leia’s eyes had already lolled shut, and Rey exhaled with relief. The nurse injected more morphine, and Rey watched as Leia’s face went slack.

For ten minutes, Rey and Maz sat quietly, watching Leia sleep. The room was quiet, dappled sunshine coming in through the open window, a gentle breeze playing with the ends of Rey’s hair. She ran a hand through it listlessly, wondering when she’d last washed it, wondering how long she’d been in this room, when she’d last eaten, how many nights had she spent sleeping on the day bed in the corner?

‘Did you really call him?’ Maz asked abruptly, interrupting Rey’s already broken thoughts.

‘Who?’

‘You know who,’ Maz replied, her eyes narrowing. ‘Did you really call him? He’s really coming?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Rey said immediately, straightening. ‘His mother is dying. Why wouldn’t I call him?’ she paused. ‘Why wouldn’t he come?’

Maz shrugged, her eyes drifting back to Leia. ‘Well, there’s a lot of bad blood between them for one.’

‘That’s all in the past now,’ Rey protested, instantly falling into her familiar habit of defending Ben. 

Maz shrugged again. ‘He hasn’t always been the best son, Rey.’ 

‘Well, Leia wasn’t always the best mother.’

Maz tsked under her breath. ‘You’re supposed to wait till she’s dead to speak ill of her, you know,’ she chided, but Rey sighed, stroking Leia’s cheek.

‘She’d be the first to agree with me,’ she reflected with sadness.

‘Hmm.’

‘She’s a wonderful woman, Maz. A great woman too. But she wasn’t always a great mother, and there’s no shame in that.’

At the word ‘mother’, Leia’s eyes fluttered open, and she gripped Rey’s hand again wordlessly, panic written across her features.

‘It’s okay,’ Rey reassured her instantly. ‘It’s okay. You’re at home. In bed. The window is open, just like you asked... it’s a sunny day. The birds are singing, Leia. Can you hear them? Spring’s in the air. I’m here, and so is Maz. Everything’s okay.’

‘Ben,’ Leia whispered, and Rey smiled at her.

‘He’s coming,’ she promised her. ‘He’s on his way.’

‘The attic,’ Leia said, a pleading look in her eyes. 

‘What about the attic?’

‘Ben. All the letters,’ Leia sighed, clearly struggling with her words. ‘So many of them. He didn’t want anyone to know... didn’t want to make a sparrow out of a songbird, you know.’ Leia closed her eyes again, her face pale and wan. ‘Sparrow out of a songbird,’ she said once more.

Rey looked to Maz helplessly, but Maz shook her head, clearly as lost as Rey was.

‘What letters, Leia?’ Rey asked. ‘You want something from the attic?’

But Leia’s eyes had lost their panicked sheen, and had instead grown unfocused and weary. ‘Mother,’ Leia replied, but her voice was light, drifting with her thoughts. ‘Bad mother, good mother,’ she continued, and Maz stood.

‘I’ll get the nurse,’ she whispered to Rey, and Rey nodded, before turning back to Leia.

‘What mother? Do you mean your mother, Leia?’

But Leia only exhaled, her breath soft against her cracked lips. Rey reached over to the bedside table, pulling out the salve the doctor had left and rubbing it gently over the woman’s dry lips. 

‘There,’ Rey said, smiling at her. ‘Still beautiful.’

A ghost of a smile played on Leia’s lips. ‘The attic,’ she said again. ‘Ben. Tell Rey... she needs to go to the attic.’

Rey swallowed down a sudden lump in her throat. ‘I’m Rey,’ she said, her voice small. ‘I’m Rey, I’m here. Ben... Ben’s coming. I promise.’

‘No,’ Leia shook her head. ‘No. I know him. He’ll never tell her. Never say a word.’

‘Who won’t say a word? What do you mean, Leia?’

Leia’s eyes fluttered open, and she stared at Rey. ‘You look like my mother.’

Rey smiled warmly at her through eyes that were suddenly blurry with tears. ‘Really?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Well,’ Rey said, pulling the blanket more firmly over Leia’s stomach. ‘I’ve never seen a picture of her, but I know you, so I’m sure it's a compliment.’

‘Pictures are... in the attic,’ Leia breathed out, exertion on her features. Suddenly, she looked panicked again, her nostrils flaring, her eyes alert. ‘The attic. Need Rey... go to the attic.’

Rey stared at her. ‘You want me to go to the attic? You want the pictures of your mother, Leia?’

Behind them, the door opened, and the nurse came to Rey’s side. 

‘A little more morphine,’ she told Rey, adjusting Leia’s cannula. ‘It can’t be long now. She hasn’t eaten or had fluids in such a long time now.’

Rey stood, releasing Leia’s hand.

‘I’ll go and get the pictures of your mother,’ she promised her. 

But Leia’s eyes still shone with vibrancy. A vibrancy that had once swirled through her entire body, and now centred in the brown wells of her eyes only. 

‘The letters. Give Rey...’ she began, but her head rolled to one side as the morphine hit her bloodstream. ‘Songbirds and sparrows... fly together...’

Rey bit her lip again. ‘I’m going to the attic,’ she told Maz authoritatively. ‘She wants a picture of her mother.’

‘She had two,’ Maz replied. 

‘So, I’ll find one of both,’ Rey assured her. ‘Call me down if anything changes. Or if Ben gets here.’

Maz nodded even as she sighed.

‘He won’t get here, Rey. He’s not coming.’

But Rey stood taller. ‘He will,’ she said firmly.

‘Rey - ’

‘He _ promised _ me,’ Rey added, taking a final look at Leia’s now sleeping form. ‘Call me if anything changes.’

***

With a relief that echoes physically across her body, Rey at last finds the pictures she’s been searching for. The first is undoubtedly Leia, aged six or seven, dressed in a tutu and ballet shoes, her hand held firmly in the palm of Breha Organa next to her. Breha looks soft and happy, smiling at the camera, sunshine in her hair. Momentarily, Rey stares at the photograph in her hand. It feels slightly unreal that the brunette child in this image is the same frail, grey-haired woman dying downstairs. Feels slightly unreal that Leia was ever young enough to be a child who went to ballet, her mother by her side. 

With a sigh, Rey tucks the photograph into her pocket, glancing quickly at the second picture, the one of Padme. 

Padme is - without a doubt - beautiful, Rey realises. She’s like Leia in so many ways, but with a more delicate curve to her face; a younger, less hungry version of her daughter. The openly sharp and deeply intelligent gaze of Leia is hidden in Padme’s lovely features, and Rey admires the black and white photograph in her hand. 

She wants to believe Leia. Desperately wants to believe that she is both as pretty and as regal looking as this woman. That she is similar to Leia’s mother, who smiles at her from behind both a camera lens and the veil of time. But Rey can’t quite make herself feel it. She can only look at this image with both admiration and a deep stab of envy. 

But now is not the time for hurt pride or vanity, Rey thinks, brushing her feelings aside. 

Now is the time to be there for Leia. 

Shaking the dust from her skin, Rey heads back to the stairs, passing a window and deciding on impulse to open it.

Leia wants all the windows to be open when she passes, Rey reminds herself, as she tears down the old curtain, coughing in the dust. She wants her spirit to fly when she goes, wants to pass unfettered through to the other side.

Rey thinks she understands. Leia wants to be free.

Leia is a woman who has spent her life in service to others, bound to her family, her friends, her own sense of responsibility and righteousness. In her death, she wants to be free of them all. 

Rey flings the window open, letting sunshine and fresh air pour into the abandoned old loft space. 

It’s when she turns that she sees it.

In the corner, peeking out from the wooden chest she overturned in her earlier fall.

Her name, in beautiful cursive, lit up by the streaming daylight.

‘What?’ Rey whispers to herself, picking her way over to the corner.

She bends down, retrieving the envelope and staring at it. It’s faded, but not ancient, the paper still firm - if a little musty - against her fingertips. She turns it in her hand, looking for any other clues as to where this letter has come from, or who might have sent it. But there’s nothing, just her name, in that beautiful calligraphy.

Looking around, already feeling guilty, Rey peels the envelope open. 

A letter is inside, and Rey slides it out, her heart pounding inexplicably, her hands damp and sweaty. 

_ Rey, _

_ It’s windy today. I can hear the storm outside, howling against my window. It’s cold and wet and no weather to be out in, as my Mom would say. But you’re outside, Rey. You’re outside, arms open wide, embracing the storm.  _

_ I know I should go downstairs and let you in. I can see that your hair is getting damp. I can see the wet patches on your dress. _

_ When I heard the door knock, I went to my window. I looked down, and there you were. Standing in the garden, dancing in the rain.  _

_ I know I should let you in. _

_ But I just want to watch you dance a little longer.  _

_ You’ll forgive me, won’t you? When I open the door, and hand you a towel. When I make the popcorn and dry your hair. I know you’ll forgive me. _

_ You’ll forgive me, and you’ll do so without ever knowing the truth.  _

_ I love to watch you dance in the rain, Rey. I love to watch your hair blowing in the wind. I love to see your face, held up to the sky, catching droplets with your tongue. _

_ I love you, Rey. _

_ Please forgive me. Please. _

_ Ben. _

Rey drops the letter to the ground, as though the paper burns her. 

Ben.

Ben.

Quickly, she picks it up again, scanning it over once more. It’s dated the 23rd of September, thirteen years in the past. She and Ben would have been fifteen, Rey realises. 

Fifteen, and he loved her.

He loved her.

Rey drops to her knees, pushing the wooden chest onto its side and looking inside.

She inhales sharply. There must be forty or fifty letters in here, all with ‘Rey’ written on the front, in a cursive that puts her own scrawled handwriting to shame. 

Ben’s handwriting, Rey realises with a thud of her heart, wondering why she hadn’t recognised it earlier. He was so particular about words. So particular about how to use them. 

She clenches her fist, taking deep breaths. 

There is nothing in this chest, Rey tells herself, but past feelings. Past feelings, best consigned to the trash. No good will come of reading any more of these letters, she thinks firmly. No good will come of it, only future hurts and potential pain.

She closes the chest, letting the wooden lid swing shut with a loud bang. 

And then she stops, her mouth running dry.

Because on the top of the chest, engraved into the wood, is a picture of a sparrow, sitting on a branch and singing alongside a glorious songbird.

_ The sparrow and the songbird,  _ Rey realises, swallowing hard. 

_ Leia knows. _

And this, Rey understands at last, is what she wanted her to see.

***

When she goes downstairs, Leia is gone. She slipped away quietly, Maz tells her, without fuss or pain, her body simply stopping as easily as it began. In her hands, Rey dumbly holds the photographs of Leia’s mothers. Maz sighs, peeling them from Rey’s numb fingers.

‘Ah well,’ Maz reflects, gazing at the images regretfully. ‘You tried. She was... I don’t know... almost easier once you’d gone upstairs. I didn’t realise this was what she wanted... I would’ve got them out days ago if I’d known - ’

‘Yes,’ Rey interrupts, almost harshly, and Maz stares at her.

‘I’m sorry, child,’ Maz says. ‘I know how you loved her.’

‘Yes,’ Rey says again, her tongue as awkward as her hands. 

Maz stares at her. ‘Do you want to sit with... with her?’

Rey shakes her head. ‘No. No, I’m... I just need to be alone right now.’

Maz nodded. ‘Alright, child. I’m going to make some phone calls, and then take a nap. I feel like I haven’t slept for days. Will you be okay?’

Rey nods. 

‘Rey - ’

‘I’m fine, honestly,’ Rey adds. ‘I just need some alone time.’

She goes outside, sitting on the porch in the sunshine, watching the clouds move slowly through the sky, wondering if Leia finally feels free. She hopes she does. Hopes she and Han and Luke and all the others that Leia lost are together again, happy somewhere in the ether. Wonders if Breha and Padme were both there to greet her, to take their daughter’s hand and pull her into the beyond.

The sky darkens, the clouds fade, and still Rey sits. The sunshine of the day turns into the azure colours of evening, and Rey hugs her knees to her chest, counting the stars as they erupt, one by one, in the heavens above her. 

She isn’t sure what time it is when she hears the car, pulling up into the long drive towards the house. Isn’t sure how late it is when she sees Ben emerge from the vehicle, looking at her frantically. 

Isn’t sure how long she sits when she sees Ben’s face fall, once he sees in her eyes that he’s missed her, that his mother has gone without him. 

Isn’t sure how long it takes her to walk towards him, once he’s dropped to his knees in the grass, his head in his hands. 

Isn’t sure how long it takes her to wrap him in her arms, to whisper comfort into his ears. 

Isn’t sure how long they sit, joined together in their grief, before her mind pulls at her consciousness, like a thread being pulled on a blanket, reminding her of just one thing.

_ He loves her.  _


	2. The Next Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grief is a funny thing.
> 
> Thank you so much for all the comments and kudos on the last chapter... from now on, this fic is just Ben and Rey working things out. No other characters make an appearance, except in flashback.x

He’s like the wind, Rey thinks, as Ben buries his face into her shoulder, shaking with unshed tears. Sometimes he’s calm, so placid and unassuming you might be fooled into thinking he wasn’t even there at all, while at other times he’s like the howling air of a hurricane, whipping over and around you so violently that you cannot hope to think of anything else. But calm or storm, Rey knows him for who he really is, underneath all the temperaments of his weather.

Calm or storm, he’s still the air she breathes. 

She pulls him up and into the house, whispering nonsense into his ear, small words of comfort, soothing noises of nothing. He follows her obediently, still white with shock, and she leaves him on the sofa, sitting slumped, his face blank.

‘You need a drink,’ she tells him, ‘let me get you something.’

He nods, and she goes into the kitchen, numbly pulling out mugs, absently stirring milk and sugar into coffee. When she returns to the living room, Ben glances up at her, and as their eyes lock, she sees that the weather has turned against her. 

He’s sitting ramrod straight now, his face set into carefully trained lines, dismissive and sharp. She says nothing, handing him his coffee, and they spend a restless twenty minutes on the sofa, staring mindlessly at the television. For all his outward coolness, Ben is still ashen-faced, his hands shaking a little as he fumbles with his coffee. In the background, the phone rings, and though Rey stands by default to answer it, Ben gets there first. She watches as he picks up the receiver, speaking into it softly, before his face tenses. ‘I can’t hear you... who is this? Look, I can’t hear you and - His face changes again, red rage running through him as he slams the receiver against the side table again and again.

‘Useless piece of crap,’ he mutters at it, as his fingers grip the green plastic. His fist clenches around it and his arm grows tense, and a look comes over his face that Rey knows all too well.

‘Don’t,’ she tells him, resting her hand over his. 

‘Don’t what?’

‘Break it,’ she replies. ‘You’ll regret it later. Besides, you have people to call.’

She doesn’t mention  _ her  _ name.

But then, neither does Ben.

**  
  
**

They go upstairs, sitting with Leia until the ambulance comes to take her away. Ben’s face falls again at the sight of his mother, and Rey takes his hand, squeezing it gently. ‘Do you want to be alone with her?’ she asks, and he looks down at her instantly.

‘You can leave if you want,’ he shrugs. ‘You’ve done enough. Don’t feel you have to stay on my account.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant - ’ she begins, but Ben shrugs again, this time pulling his hand from hers.

‘Do what you want, Rey,’ he spits. ‘You always do anyway.’

She bites on her lip, watching Ben sit next to Leia, adjusting the blanket over her still body. Quietly, she slips into the seat by the window, closing it gently. When she turns back, Ben is staring at her over Leia’s body. Rey meets his gaze and holds it.

She’s never been frightened of looking into the eye of a storm.

When the ambulance arrives to take Leia, Ben signs form after form, his expression grim. 

‘There’s more paperwork in death than there is in finance,’ he says, his voice bleak, and Rey shrugs.

‘I wouldn’t know.’

He looks up at that, his eyes sharp. ‘You got something to say to me, Rey?’

She meets his gaze, completely unafraid. ‘No,’ she says bluntly. 

‘Because if you do, you should say it. Get it out there now.’

She shakes her head again. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you, Ben.’

He stares at her for a moment, his eyes dark and intense, as though trying to read her. She stands taller, staring right back at him. She knows enough about him to understand that right now, he isn’t  _ her _ Ben. This tall, broad man isn’t the boy she grew up with, the neighbour she could always depend on, the Ben she’d known and played with and grown to adulthood with. 

This man, this Ben, is a stranger. A stranger who lives halfway round the world, never calling or visiting her, ignoring her and her life as much as she’s taken to ignoring his. 

This man isn’t the boy who’d loved her.

‘I’m going to make dinner,’ she announces, turning away.

‘Don’t bother on my account,’ Ben replies, his voice frosty. ‘I’m not hungry.’

Rey turns back. ‘When did you last eat?’

But Ben gives a bitter laugh, shaking his head at her in disgust. ‘You sound like  _ her, _ ’ he says, leaving no doubt in Rey’s mind as to who ‘her’ is. ‘You’ve been here too long, Rey. You should have got out years ago.’

‘What? Like you did?’

Ben eyes her darkly. ‘Yeah, like I did.’

Rey looks at him warily. ‘Somehow, I don’t think I’d be happier for it.’

Ben opens his mouth as though to speak, before closing it slowly. He looks away from her, shrugging easily. ‘It’s your life.’

Rey feels a small dart of anger. ‘Yes, it is.’

‘Except it's not your life,’ Ben replies, looking back at her, his tone cruel. ‘It’s my  _ mother’s  _ life, isn’t it? Look at you, Rey... you do realise you’re just another shadow of the great, late Leia Organa, don’t you? Only you’re the cheaper, bargain basement version,’ his eyes drag over her slowly, from the worn socks on her feet to her unwashed hair. ‘You’re  _ Leia-lite,  _ Rey. Only Leia-lite.’

Rey’s fists clench involuntarily, and she takes a moment to breathe deeply. ‘Your mother just died,’ she says through gritted teeth, ‘so I’m going to forgive you for that.’

‘Ah, so graceful and kind, just like my mother would have been,’ Ben snaps. ‘You really are a well-trained little puppy, aren’t you?’

She slaps him. It’s hard across his cheek, the sound of her hand meeting his skin ringing across the room. There’s a red welt across his face, and he brings a hand up to it slowly. He smiles at her slowly.

‘Ah, so you’re still in there, are you?’ he asks her. ‘Good.’

She ignores that, lowering her hand, trying to catch her breath. She’s panting, almost winded, and she realises that adrenaline is pumping through her body hard. She holds her breath, trying to slow her racing heart.

‘I’m going to make dinner,’ she says again, deliberately keeping her voice calm.

‘I told you, I’m not hungry.’

She looks back over her shoulder at him. ‘Fine. Suit yourself. Starve if you like.’

She goes through to the kitchen, searching half-heartedly through the fridge before she gives up and goes to the freezer. In the last few weeks of Leia’s illness, she’d taken to batch cooking Leia’s favourite foods, trying to tempt the cancer-stricken woman into eating something, anything.

‘You haven’t eaten in days,’ Rey said once, bringing a bowl of soup on a tray into the living room, where Leia sat by the window. ‘Here. Try this.’

‘You don’t have to sit here and cook for me, Rey,’ Leia had said in response. ‘You should go home, get some sleep.’

‘I live next door,’ Rey shrugged, ‘and I can sleep here just as easily as I can sleep there.’

‘You can take Ben’s old room,’ Leia suggested. ‘He won’t be using it.’

Rey’s eyes snapped up to Leia’s. ‘Did you call him?’ she asked. ‘Have you told him what the doctor said?’

Leia shrugged. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was paper thin. ‘He said it could be weeks yet. There’s no use in dragging Ben away from his work, and away from his life, to sit with a sick old woman.’

‘You should call him,’ Rey said, sitting next to Leia and bringing the spoon to her lips. But Leia pushed it away tiredly.

‘I’m not hungry, Rey.’

Rey closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. When she opened them again, Leia was staring at her. ‘Please, Leia,’ Rey begged. ‘You know how this goes. You stop eating, you get sicker, and then the cancer wins. You have to eat.’

Leia sighed, resting a hand over Rey’s. ‘Rey, I’m full of ascites, and eating makes it worse,’ she gave Rey’s hand a small squeeze. ‘The cancer has already won, honey.’

Rey blinked back tears. She stood, throwing the spoon back on the tray and lifting it. ‘You should call Ben,’ she said again. ‘He should know.’

Leia shrugged. ‘Maybe you should call him.’

Rey almost laughed. ‘He doesn’t want to speak to me, Leia.’

Leia sighed again, shifting her head towards the open window. ‘Yes, he does. If only you knew how much.’

‘Leia?’

But Leia had already closed her eyes. ‘Go and eat some soup, Rey. You’re looking thin.’

Now, Rey stares at the neatly frozen stacks of tupperware, helpfully labelled ‘Leia’s favourite soup’ to ‘Chewie’s recipe for roasting porg’ and feels tears prick at her eyes. She pulls out three tubs, throwing them onto the counter and closing the freezer door behind her. With a ruthlessness uncalled for in a kitchen, she throws the tubs into the microwave and stabs at the buttons, before pulling plates and cutlery from the cupboards, tossing them onto the table so that they rattle in self-defence.

‘Don’t save any of your anger-food for me,’ a voice says over the noise of Rey’s cooking. Rey looks up to see Maz staring at her from across the kitchen. ‘I’m going home.’

Rey pauses. ‘You’re going home?’

Maz nods. ‘Yes. Leia’s dead. There’s no reason for me to be here anymore.’

Rey stares at her, her eyes wide.

‘Don’t look at me like that, child,’ Maz chides. ‘I’ll be back for the funeral.’

‘It’s late,’ Rey says, almost pathetically. ‘Can’t you stay until tomorrow at least? You shouldn’t be driving in all this dark.’

Maz laughs at that. ‘I’m no wilting flower, Rey. It’s only a three-hour drive to Takodana. I’ll be fine,’ she pauses, looking at Rey keenly. ‘You want to come with me?’

Rey shakes her head. ‘No.’

Maz continues to gaze at her. ‘You going home tonight?’

‘Home?’

‘Mmm, yes. That big house of yours next to this one. Remember it?’

Rey gives a small smile. ‘You know, I don’t know if I do. I haven’t slept there in weeks now.’ 

‘You should go home,’ Maz suggests.

‘I’m fine here,’ Rey replies, going back to the cupboard and pulling out some glasses. 

‘Ben’s here now though.’

Maz’s voice is flat, almost a warning, and Rey turns to look at her.

‘So?’

‘So, you should be... careful.’

Rey licks her lips. ‘Careful?’

‘Of Ben. Of yourself.’

‘Maz...’

But Maz holds up a hand, stopping Rey’s words. ‘Grief’s a funny thing, child, and can do funny things to your mind. And I remember you two, back in the day. Lines can blur, Rey. They might already be blurred, in your case. I don’t know.’

Words, unbidden, rise in Rey’s mind.  _ He loved you. _

But she smiles at Maz, coming over to Leia’s oldest friend and embracing her warmly. ‘You’re sweet to worry about me, Maz. But I’ll be fine. Ben and I... we’re friends. Nothing more. We’ll be okay.’

‘Hmm,’ Maz grumbles, but she embraces Rey back anyway. ‘Take care of yourself, child.’

Rey walks Maz to the door, suddenly feeling unimaginably weary. Ben’s sitting in the old porch swing, his long legs sprawled before him, and he nods at Maz curtly.

‘Ben Solo,’ Maz says, and Rey admires the woman’s demeanour, her uncanny ability to make Ben’s short, three syllable name sound long and full of meaning.

‘Maz Kanata,’ Ben replies, shifting in the swing to face them.

‘You well?’ Maz asks.

‘Well, my mother just died. But other than that, things are good.’

Rey looks down. He’s talking about  _ her,  _ obviously. Her, the girl he’s going to marry. Rey’s seen Leia’s pictures of her. She’s tall, beautiful, and unspeakably elegant. 

Of course things are good for him.

‘Yes, I know about your mother,’ Maz replies drily. ‘I was there when she passed, after all.’

Her words are harsh, and full of hidden accusation:  _ I was there, and you weren’t.  _

Ben’s face hardens, but before he can speak, Rey clears her throat.

‘Maz was just leaving,’ she says. 

‘But I’ll be back for the funeral,’ Maz announces. She turns to Rey. ‘Let me know when you have a date for it. Leia was nothing if not ruthlessly organised. It will be an easy enough task.’ She turns back to Ben, giving him a withering glance. ‘I can only assume you’re going to let Rey handle all the details?’

Ben’s face hardens further, and he looks down into his lap, where his hands lay clenched.

‘Well, she handles everything else adeptly, so why not?’

Maz hugs Rey again, before walking down the drive to her car. She waves once more before climbing into the driver’s seat, and Rey leans on the door, watching the lights of her car until they’ve disappeared into the black night beyond.

She turns to Ben, who’s staring at her. There’s no anger in his eyes, or rage, or affection, or any sort of emotion really. He’s just staring at her, his eyes blank.

_ He loved her. _

Rey swallows, and without saying another word, leaves him there in the dark alone.

***

She’s sitting in the living room, flicking through the tv channels, when she feels the sofa sink next to her. Ben’s there, gripping a tumbler full of a dark, sticky looking liquid.

‘What’s that?’ she asks him.

‘Port,’ he says, staring at the television. ‘It was all I could find and I need a drink. It will have to do.’

‘Is it any good?’

‘Here,’ he shoves the glass into her hand, and she gazes at it. It smells sweet, almost sickly, and she gingerly brings the glass to her lips. She’s careful to avoid the rim where his lips have been, feeling like even the press of her lips against the imprint of his own would indicate some sort of intimacy.

She sips, wincing at the thick, sugary taste of alcohol.

Ben almost rolls his eyes at her. ‘You never could hold your alcohol,’ he says lightly, but the words make Rey blush intently, memories dragged forth at his words.

_ They’re sixteen, and Ben’s snuck one of Han’s bottles of whisky into Rey’s bedroom. His hair is long, hanging over his ears, and he looks gangly and so fresh-faced that the impish grin he wears seems almost comical on him. _

_ ‘What is it?’ Rey asks warily.  _

_ ‘You know what it is,’ Ben replies, yanking the cork from the bottle with his teeth. _

_ ‘Does your mother know - ?’ _

_ He ruffles her hair good-naturedly. ‘Fuck no, of course not.’ _

_ She purses her lips. ‘You should tell her. You shouldn’t be taking your Dad’s things - ’ _

_ ‘He has no use for it now, Rey,’ Ben says, and his voice is sad. ‘Mom isn’t going to drink it. She’s probably forgotten it was even in the house. So, come on, take a sip.’ _

_ ‘Why?’ _

_ ‘Why?’ Ben asks, scratching his head. ‘What do you mean, why?’ _

_ ‘Why are we going to drink it?’ _

_ Ben grins at her. ‘Because it's a Friday night, we’re sixteen, and this is the kind of shit normal teenagers do, Rey.’ _

_ She smiles back. ‘You mean you think we’re normal teenagers?’ _

_ ‘I don’t know,’ Ben replies. ‘But let’s test the theory. Come on. Drink up and let’s find out.’ _

_ Rey takes a quick swig on the bottle, coughing as the smoky, rough liquid sticks in her throat. Ben laughs, grabbing the bottle from her and drinking from it himself. _

_ ‘Fuck, this stuff is awful.’ _

_ Rey sighs, letting her head fall back, her fingers in the plush fabric of her rug. ‘Yeah.’ _

_ He drinks from it again, passing it back to her, and watching her gingerly sip at the bottle. _

_ ‘You feel normal yet?’ he whispers to her. _

_ She shrugs. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever feel normal,’ she sighs. _

_ ‘Yeah,’ Ben agrees ruefully. _

_ Rey rolls on the floor so that she’s lying on her stomach, her head resting on her folded arms. ‘Rose Tico at school says that when Finn sneaks into her bedroom, they drink dollar store wine before fooling around.’ _

_ Ben stares at her, his cheeks suddenly red.  _

_ ‘They actually make dollar store wine?’ he asks. _

_ Rey laughs. ‘I just told you that Rose Tico and Finn Storm are fooling around and that’s what you took from the conversation?’ _

_ He shrugs, looking down. ‘Rey, are you... umm... are you saying you want to... fool around?’ _

_ Now Rey’s blushing, and hard. _

_ ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘I don’t know.’ _

_ Ben stares at her. Wordlessly, she indicates to the bottle, and he passes it over. She sits up, swigging back from it, and this time, the burn in her throat is almost pleasant. Her whole body feels warm, her fingers tingle, and she sighs again, almost content. _

_ Ben reaches over, and gently, he drags his thumb over her lower lip.  _

_ Inexplicably, despite the warmth of her body, she shivers.  _

_ He’s going to kiss her. She can feel it in her very bones.  _

_ But he doesn’t lean towards her, or pull her close. Instead, he sucks his thumb into his mouth, licking at his skin. _

_ ‘Stray drop,’ he says, his voice low, and Rey nods, almost breathless. _

_ The quiet around them is intense. _

_ Suddenly, Ben clears his throat. ‘Tell me more about Rose and Finn,’ he asks, and Rey nods, ducking her head down so that he won’t see the flash of disappointment in her eyes. _

_ The stinging knowledge that she wanted him to kiss her, and he didn’t. _

‘You okay?’ Ben’s words, loud and clear, drag Rey back into the present.

‘Yes,’ she says instantly, handing him back his glass of port. ‘That stuff is vile.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben agrees. ‘But it’s all she had.’

For a time they sit in silence, Ben drinking his port, mindlessly staring at the television.

‘You going to go home then?’ Ben suddenly asks.

‘Hmm?’

‘Are you going to go home then?’ Ben says again. ‘Back to your place.’

‘Oh, I guess,’ Rey replies, almost confused. Home is such a strange concept for her, even after all these years. ‘I’ve been sleeping on the day bed in Leia’s... in your mother’s room for so long, I’ve forgotten I even own the house next door.’

Ben shrugs. ‘You didn’t have to sleep on the day bed. You could have slept in the guest room.’

Rey stares at him. ‘Actually, towards the end, I had to sleep in her room.’

‘Why?’

She shakes her head. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’ 

‘Tell me,’ he demands.

‘Ben - ’

‘Rey, tell me.’

She swallows. ‘Well, umm, she had tumours in her stomach... and she would frequently get sick. Sometimes at night, she would choke on her own vomit, and I would have to - ’

But Ben holds up a hand, shaking his head. ‘Fuck,’ he exhales, tipping back his port and finishing the drink in one hit. ‘Don’t tell me anymore.’ He stares at her, his eyes wide. ‘How did you bear it, Rey?’ he asks quietly. ‘How could you stand that?’

Rey shrugs, suddenly speechless. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispers. ‘I just did.’

‘She wasn’t your Mom.’

‘No,’ Rey agrees. ‘But she was the closest thing I had to one.’

Ben stands, running a hand through his hair. ‘I need another drink,’ he mutters, stalking through to the kitchen. When he returns, he has a second glass which he thrusts into Rey’s hands. 

She looks up at him.

‘Drink with me,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to drink alone.’

Rey pauses. ‘You could have brought...’ she swallows, looking him square in the eye. ‘Well, she could have come, you know...’

‘It’s not a party, Rey,’ Ben snaps. ‘Whatever my mother led you to believe, you aren’t the fucking curator of her death, and you don’t get to issue invites to her demise like you’re giving out candy,’ he sinks back his drink. ‘Of course I know I could have fucking brought her here, Rey.’

Rey stands, intent on slapping him again. But he catches her hand, his port falling to the floor, a purple stain growing at their feet.

For a moment, no words are spoken between them. Her hand still trapped within his, Ben pulls her closer, until her body is pressed against his. She shifts her head to the side, and away from him, but he trails a finger down her cheek, sighing against her skin.

The wind grows warm, a tempting summer breeze, and like a reed, Rey bends towards it.

‘Do you ever regret it?’ Ben whispers, and his words, loaded with meaning and memory she isn’t quite ready to face, bring her back to reality with a crash.

She pulls away, going through to the kitchen, mindlessly cleaning and tidying the food she’d defrosted and forgotten to eat earlier. The soup goes into the sink, and she brushes at her cheeks, wiping away the tears that have inexplicably gathered in her eyes. When she turns around, Ben is there.

‘I’m going home,’ she tells him. He hardly even blinks.

‘Fine. Go.’

She nods. ‘I’m going to go upstairs and get my things.’

Now he nods, still staring at her, his eyes dark and searching.

She tears herself away from them, practically running up the stairs, going into the guest room and throwing her bits and pieces into her travel bag. It’s when she’s in the hall, pulling her coat over her shoulders, that she remembers.

She left the window in the attic open. 

‘Shit,’ she breathes, throwing her bag to the floor and opening the door to the attic steps. She doesn’t know why she cares, doesn’t know why she should bother, but her conscience niggles at her. All of Leia’s most precious memories are in that attic... Padme’s dresses, her brother’s papers, her photographs. If it rains, they might spoil.

So Rey heads up the stairs, throwing on the old lamp and moving across to the window, closing it securely. When she turns back, she sees the chest in the corner. 

The sparrow and the songbird, singing together in the corner. 

She can’t help herself from reaching in, from pulling out a handful of letters. Without even stopping to consider her actions, she shoves them into her coat pocket.

Downstairs, Ben is waiting for her. 

‘I’m going to go now,’ she says. 

‘Right.’

She waits for another moment, hoping against hope that he might say something, anything, to fill this terrible void between them.

But Ben says nothing, and so she sighs, turning around and walking to the door.

It happens so suddenly, she almost jumps. Two hands, large and warm, wrap around her waist, and she feels Ben’s head against her shoulder. 

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he whispers, again and again, into the fabric of her jacket. 

She spins instantly. ‘Ben - ’

He wraps his arms around her fully at that point, burying his face into her neck, clutching at her miserably. He’s crying openly, his face wet with tears, and through a choked voice he apologises, again and again.

‘Please don’t leave me here alone,’ he begs her. ‘Please don’t go. Please stay with me.’

****  
  


She reads the next letter with Ben asleep next to her.

They’re in his room, and he’s an exhausted bundle next to her, fully dressed, his face tear-stained even in his sleep. 

The wind is calm, the storm temporarily broken.

Rey is so tired, she thinks she might be beyond sleep. She’s certain there are dark circles under her eyes, and she knows that her body is unwashed, her hair unbrushed.

She opens a letter under the lamplight quietly, so as not to disturb Ben. It’s thinner than the last, and when she pulls it from it's faded envelope, it’s just a single sheet, with a single line upon it. She reads it with an almost empty feeling of shock, taking in the date on top and knowing exactly when and why Ben wrote this letter.

_ Rey, I should have kissed you when you asked. Please forgive me. I love you so much. _


	3. Songbird

_ On one point, Rey’s Grandfather is very clear. _

_ ‘Do not, under any circumstances, talk or otherwise mix with the folk next door.’ _

_ Rey stares at him, clenching her hands so that they don’t shake, giving away her fear. ‘Why not?’ _

_ Her Grandfather looks at her with yellowed, sickly eyes. ‘They are not good people,’ he tells her. ‘Stay away from them. Especially,’ his eyes narrow dangerously, ‘Especially the boy.’ _

_ The boy. _

_ Ah yes. The boy. _

_ Rey’s seen him from her bedroom window. He’s tall, dark haired, a little awkward looking, if she’s entirely honest with herself. He must be twelve or thirteen, like her, and he spends most of his time in his garden, writing under a tree. That catches her, makes her stop and stare at him. Because children don’t write for fun, do they? Children don’t sit in their garden, under an old willow tree, and write alone, for hours on end. _

_ Not that she knows what children do, or are meant to do. She’s never really been around them herself.  _

_ Sometimes she thinks she’d like to meet one. To have a friend. Just one. Someone to talk to. Someone to understand. Someone to listen. _

_ But now her grandfather says no. _

_ Not the boy. _

_ And Rey always does what her grandfather says. Always. _

_ She’s too scared not to. Terrified, in fact. _

_ And so she nods, her face carefully trained into its usual lines of docile obedience. _

_ ‘Yes, Grandfather. Whatever you say.’  _

_ *** _

_ Their home is isolated, off the beaten track, set into fields and fields of untouched land. Sometimes Rey wonders why only they and their neighbours live here; wonders why the two houses were built so close together in such a lonely place. But it isn’t her place to ask questions, isn’t her place to ponder such matters, and so she pushes her curiosity away. Instead, she explores the property, walking for miles and miles, through the grassy fields, green and lush and verdant, until she comes to a woods, dark and mossy and smelling of rain. She can hear a stream in the distance, hear trickling water and birds calling, and she sets in that direction instantly. She loves water. She’s always loved water. It calls to her, and she answers it instinctively. _

_ She winds her way through the forest, past old trees and over rocks and patches of mud, until she comes to a rocky, flat patch of land. There in the middle runs the stream, and she’s pulling off her shoes before she can think, pulling off her socks and splashing into the water, the sudden shock of cold against her toes breathtakingly wonderful.  _

_ Water calls, and Rey answers it. _

_ She doesn’t know how long she stands there, in the stream, her eyes closed and body still. She doesn’t know how long she takes deep and even breaths for, cleansing her Grandfather from her mind. _

_ It’s a noise behind her that startles her from her reverie, and she turns, her mouth dropping open in shock. _

_ It's the boy. _

_ The boy from next door, here in the forest, staring at her. _

_ The boy. The one she isn’t meant to talk to. _

_ He doesn’t say anything, just looks at her, his brown eyes soft and curious. _

_ She looks back at him, chewing on her lip. _

_ They don’t speak, simply continuing to stare at one another quietly. A moment passes between them, a moment of calm reflection, of shared experience. Abruptly, Rey realises something.  _

_ Her Grandfather warned her not to speak to him. So, it is incredibly likely that this boy’s family warned him not to speak to her too. _

_ And neither of them wants to break the rules. _

_ But then, nor does Rey want this moment to end. _

_ And so she nods at him, her mouth closed, and he nods back, slow and sure. He brings a finger to his lips - lips that are full and soft - and makes a silent gesture for her to be quiet, pointing up. _

_ She glances to the sky, not knowing what to look for, and glances back at him.  _

_ ‘The tree,’ he mouths. ‘There.’ _

_ She glances up again, this time to the side, and there, on the high branch of a tree, sits a brilliantly red bird. He’s small and finch-like, his beak a bright orange, his feathers a splash of colour against the green and brown foliage. _

_ ‘Oh,’ she breathes, her voice a reflex of surprise. _

_ The boy grins, but gestures for her to be quiet once more. _

_ ‘Wait,’ he mouths. ‘Just wait.’ _

_ She waits, her feet in the stream, her eyes on the bird. She isn’t sure what she’s waiting for exactly, but there’s a promise in the boy’s eyes which intrigues her and all that waits for her at home is a lonely room and her terror of a Grandfather. _

_ Besides, she’s good at waiting. Waiting for parents who never came; for the family she knows now was just a dream.  _

_ The bird is quiet and his body still, though Rey’s fairly certain his eyes are darting to and fro, scanning the canopy around him. She keeps her own body rigid and unmoving, aware that even the smallest of movements might disturb the small creature. She glances back at the boy, who - rather than looking at the bird - is staring at her. _

_ ‘Wait,’ he mouths again.  _

_ She’s soon rewarded for her patience. The bird opens his beak, and begins to sing. Two high notes, followed by a pattern of lower calling sounds. It’s loud and wonderful and unexpected and Rey has to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. When she turns back to the boy, he’s smiling too.  _

_ Smiling at her. _

_ ‘Songbird,’ he says, his voice low and quiet. _

_ Rey nods. She looks back to the bird, still singing above them, before picking up her shoes and making her way over to the boy. When she stands before him she chews on her lip, suddenly uncertain as to what to say. _

_ But the boy saves her from her indecision. _

_ ‘I’m Ben,’ he offers. _

_ ‘Rey.’ _

_ He sighs. _

_ ‘I’m not supposed to talk to you.’ _

_ She nods. ‘I’m not supposed to talk to you either,’ she pauses. ‘Do you... do you know why?’ _

_ Something dark crosses his face. ‘No,’ he says, although she suspects he’s lying. Suspects he knows the truth. _

_ ‘Oh.’ _

_ He stands taller, regarding her with open interest. ‘No one’s lived in your house for years. Where’d you come from, Rey?’ _

_ She shrugs. ‘We’ve moved around.’ _

_ He nods at that. Above them, the songbird calls once more.  _

_ ‘How did you know?’ she asks, and Ben looks at her. _

_ ‘How did I know what?’  _

_ ‘That he would sing,’ Rey replies, gesturing to the bird. _

_ Ben shrugs. ‘He’s searching for his mate. They always sing when looking for one.’ _

_ ‘What happens then?’ Rey asks. ‘Once he finds her?’ _

_ Ben looks up to the bird in the trees above them. ‘They sing together,’ he says simply. ‘They start to sing together.’ _

_ *** _

_ Rey doesn’t tell her Grandfather about Ben. She isn’t a fool, and she knows inherently that telling her Grandfather about the boy next door would be a foolish thing to do. So, she keeps their woodland meeting to herself. It was a one-off chance encounter anyway, she tells herself. An accident. She has nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing to confess. _

_ Still, she doesn’t return to the woods after that. She got away with seeing him once. She knows her Grandfather. Knows his moods, his temper and sharp eyes. She knows she won’t get away with it twice. _

_ But sometimes, while sitting in her bedroom, she’ll see Ben in his garden, writing under the willow tree. And she’ll watch him, taking in how he turns his pen between his fingers while thinking, or how he runs his hand through his hair when frustrated. She watches him secretly, never giving away her presence, just looking, her mind caught on his lips or his hands or the angular curve of his jaw.  _

_ She never gives her presence away. _

_ But sometimes, while she’s hiding behind her curtain, she’ll see his eyes flicker up to her window, and she knows he’s watching too. _

_ *** _

_ Rey’s always had private tutors. Always. In London, a dour woman dredged up from the private education system acted as her tutor, drumming into her the kings of England, deportment and posture. In New York, a girl fresh from college was brought in to teach her French and elocution. Maths, physics, chemistry and biology were never offered. _

_ ‘Science is for men,’ her Grandfather snarled when she made the mistake of asking why. ‘All you need to know is enough to make you marriageable.’ _

_ But now, here, Grandfather has decided Rey might finally - finally - attend school. _

_ ‘I can’t get a tutor to come out this far,’ he said, his tone sharp and regretful. ‘So, for the time being, until I find you an appropriate teacher, you’ll have to go to the local school.’ _

_ ‘The local school?’ Rey repeated, trying her absolute best to keep any hint of excitement from her voice.  _

_ ‘Yes,’ Grandfather replied. ‘I expect you to keep your head down, learn well, and not to associate with any riffraff. Do you understand me?’ _

_ Rey nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’ _

_ ‘Any hint of scandal from you, my dear, and the consequences will be dire,’ her Grandfather’s voice was light, but weighted with threat.  _

_ ‘I understand.’ _

_ Her Grandfather eyed her sceptically. ‘Do you? Really? Rats are instinctively programmed to steal food, did you know that? Punish them by breaking a bone and they might flinch, but they’ll still carry on stealing all the same.’ _

_ ‘I’m no rat, Grandfather.’ _

_ ‘Aren’t you?’ he asked lightly. ‘Your mother was one. A sneaky, manipulative rat. Well, heed my words, girl: any licentious behaviour from you, and I’ll do more than break your bones. I’ll inflict pain like you’ve never known before.’ _

_ Fear trickled down Rey’s spine. _

_ ‘I’m no rat,’ she said again. _

_ He chuckled. ‘Maybe not. Maybe you’re a different kind of vermin. Well, time will tell.’  _

_ She likes school, as it turns out. Every day she walks the half mile to the end of her drive, stupidly excited to see the yellow bus as it comes over the horizon. She also feels excited to see Ben, who sits on the other side of the road, even though they never talk, or even say hello. _

_ They just look at one another. _

_ She makes friends quickly. Finn, who sits with her in English, and Rose, who sits with her at registration. Then there’s Poe, who she’s not certain she likes, distrusting his easy manner and devil-may-care attitude. But he’s popular and all the girls seem to think he likes her, so she smiles in his presence and pretends he doesn’t frustrate her, or internally make her wince. _

_ No one knows she lives next door to Ben. She doesn’t tell anyone, and neither does Ben, it seems. Not that it matters. Socially, Ben is in a world all of his own. _

_ ‘His mother is Leia Organa,’ Rose whispers conspiratorially one morning. ‘His uncle is Dr Luke Skywalker. They’re the richest family in the town.’ _

_ ‘Really?’ Rey asks, trying to disguise her interest. _

_ ‘Mmm,’ Rose nods. ‘They live over by Endor Wood. Ben’s Grandfather, around fifty years ago, bought up half the land around here with his business partner. They were going to tear down the wood, sell the lumber, build a new town on the site and split the profits - not that they needed the money, you know. My sister says it was a vanity project, whatever that means,’ Rose adds flippantly. ‘Anyway, the deal went sour and they split the land in two. Now Ben lives in the house built on his family’s side.’ _

_ ‘Oh,’ Rey swallows nervously, poking at her lunch. _

_ ‘The other house has been empty for years. Ben’s Mom has offered to buy it, again and again, but apparently the owner is spiteful and refuses to sell.’ _

_ Spiteful. Rey looks down. Spite was the least of her Grandfather’s defects. _

_ ‘He seems really quiet,’ she offers, and Rose shrugs. _

_ ‘Maybe. I don’t know. Ben doesn’t hang out with the likes of you and me. Has his own crew... Hux, Baz, Phasma...’ Rose trails off. ‘You and I aren’t high class enough for the likes of them. But it's fine. Don’t worry. You keep away from them, and they’ll keep away from you.’ _

_ Rey nods. She knows that. Ben never comes near her, after all. _

_ But later that evening, when they’re off the bus and walking up the road towards their respective houses, Ben looks up and over at her.  _

_ He stops. _

_ She stops. _

_ And they both smile. _

_ *** _

_ Her Grandfather never does get around for finding a tutor for her, or maybe he’s just given up, Rey can’t be sure. She simply continues to tiptoe quietly around him, keeping to herself. _

_ He’s coughing more these days. A rasping, gasp of a cough that makes his nurse frown. _

_ Rey doesn’t ask. Rey doesn’t care. _

_ They’ve been living in the house for three years when Poe asks her out. _

_ ‘You, me, a movie,’ he says with a wink, and Rey blushes from her head to her toe. _

_ ‘Maybe,’ she replies, knowing full well that her Grandfather will never let her go. It’s a good excuse, if nothing else. The perfect reason to say no. _

_ When Rose speaks to her later, she can’t believe Rey’s hesitance.  _

_ ‘You and Poe,’ she gushes. ‘The whole school is talking about it. It just makes sense.’ _

_ But Rey frowns. Because when she thinks of Poe, nothing makes sense at all. _

_ But when she thinks of Ben, the world seems to clear. _

_ They’re walking along the road home, on opposite sides and not talking as usual, when Ben stops.  _

_ By habit, Rey stops too. _

_ ‘You and Dameron,’ Ben says, standing taller.  _

_ They’re fifteen now, and Ben is tall. So tall that Rey’s mouth runs dry. _

_ ‘What?’ she asks.  _

_ It’s the first word she’s said to him in years. _

_ ‘You with him?’ _

_ His voice is low, so low that Rey pauses, turning his words over and over in her mind, searching for hidden meaning. _

_ ‘No,’ she replies honestly. _

_ Something in his shoulders seems to relax. _

_ ‘But he’s asked me...’ Rey continues, letting her words drift away into the afternoon air around them. _

_ Ben nods, that odd set to his shoulders back once more. _

_ ‘He hurts you,’ Ben says, ‘and you come to me, right?’ _

_ Rey stares at him. _

_ ‘He hurts you,’ Ben says again, and this time his words are clear; completely closed to misinterpretation. ‘He hurts you, and he deals with me.’ _

_ Rey nods. _

_ For a moment, Ben continues to look at her, his gaze dark and intense. There’s a storm in his eyes, and Rey bites her lip,  _

_ But she doesn’t look away. _

_ The moment passes, but the storm doesn’t fade. Ben turns away, slinging his bag over his shoulder and carrying on down the road. _

_ He looks back at her once. _

_ ‘You come to me, Rey. He hurts you, and you come to me.’ _

_ *** _

Rey’s awake when Ben’s eyes flutter open, and he rolls over to look at her. They’re still fully dressed, and despite the broken sleep, Rey still feels exhausted. 

It all comes running back to her. Leia is dead. Ben is here. 

She gives a tired sigh, and Ben reaches over, running a finger down her cheek.

The early morning sun breaks through his window while Ben and Rey stare at one another.

And somewhere, in the distance, a songbird begins to call.

  
  
  


__

  
  
  


__


	4. Sparrow

Rey watched as Ben rolled onto his back, throwing an arm over his eyes.

‘God, I feel terrible,’ he muttered, ‘I drank too much of that port last night.’

She sighed. ‘That, or your Mum just died.’

Ben looked at her, his eyes full of sorrow. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘she did, didn’t she?’

Rey stretched, sitting up and throwing her legs off the bed. She stared out the window, at the fields beyond. ‘It’s going to be a nice day,’ she remarked, changing the subject and gesturing to the sun. 

But Ben continued to lie on his back. ‘I don’t care,’ he said, his voice blank.

‘Are you jet-lagged?’

He shook his head. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘Go for a walk,’ she urged him, standing and straightening her clothes. ‘It will help clear your head, shake off the cobwebs. You could walk down the drive, your Mum and I - ’ Rey froze, all thoughts of Leia making her stomach turn. ‘Well, anyway, we had a new gate installed last year, and you haven’t seen it yet.’

‘I don’t care about a fucking gate, Rey.’

‘So, walk down to the meadows then, or into the woods, or - ’ 

‘I could go to the stream,’ Ben said suddenly, his words deliberately light. Rey paused, turning to him. ‘You could come with me,’ he added, something in his eyes turning dark as memory ran through them. ‘Just like old times.’

Rey chewed on her lip. Abruptly, she was struck by a memory of water on her skin and mud in her hair, her back scratched to pieces while her body burned and she flushed, her cheeks turning pink.

Ben must have noticed, because he sat up in bed, watching her carefully, waiting for her to speak.

She cleared her throat. ‘I, umm, don’t go to the stream these days.’

‘Rey - ’

‘I should make breakfast,’ she said hurriedly, turning away and leaving him.

She heard him sigh as she closed the door behind her.

When he found her later, he had showered and changed, his hair hanging, damp and languid, across his forehead and neck.

‘Sorry,’ he said instantly, nodding at her from across the kitchen. ‘We said we would never...’ he sighed, looking defeated and tired. ‘I am sorry, Rey. I shouldn’t have brought up the stream.’

‘No,’ Rey agreed, keeping her eyes on the oatmeal in front of her, stirring it left and right, making swirling patterns into the porridge.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Ben asked, and Rey shook her head, still keeping her head down.

‘No.’

Ben stared at her. ‘Maybe we should, it might - ’

‘I said no.’

Ben looked down, a hint of a scowl on his face. He pulled up a seat at the table and began pouring himself a cup of coffee, and she could feel his eyes on her back.

‘Do you ever think about it -?’ he began, and Rey clicked the gas off, dumping the cooked porridge into a bowl on the table.

‘I’m going to go home today,’ she announced, her voice curt. ‘You don’t need me here, not anymore, and - ’

‘You don’t have to run away,’ Ben interrupted her, looking stung. ‘I’ll shut the fuck up about the stream and... look, you don’t have to run, okay?’

She stared at him, tears abruptly stinging at her eyes. 

‘I need to shower,’ she told him. ‘I need to change. My things are at home... all my clean things... the things that don’t smell of sickness, or medicine, or night after night of sleeplessness. I’ve done all I can do here, Ben. I took care of her. I did - ’

‘I know you did,’ Ben cut in patiently. ‘I know what you’ve done, but - ’

‘There’s no ‘but’ here, Ben. I took care of her. I can’t take care of you too.’

At that, his mouth dropped open, and he stared at her, his eyes wide and angry.

‘I don’t want you to  _ take care of me _ , Rey,’ he spat. ‘I never wanted that.’

‘Your Mum just died,’ Rey said helplessly. ‘You’re a mess, you’re all over the place, and you won’t even - ’

‘Fuck that, Rey,’ Ben swore at her. ‘Yeah, I’m a mess. But you know what? I’ve always been a mess, even when my Mom was here. You’ve got it all wrong, you know that?’ he stood, walking to the sink and dashing his coffee into it. ‘You’re standing there saying you can’t take care of me, and yet here you are, mixing up my fucking porridge and making the coffee and cleaning the kitchen and acting like I’m a child instead of what I actually am, which is a bereaved son.’ He shook his head at her, almost with disgust. ‘I can make my own fucking breakfast and coffee, Rey. I can clean the kitchen. I can even - though I’m sure you wouldn’t believe it - organise my  _ own mother’s  _ funeral, Rey. You know what I can’t do? You want to know?’

His eyes were black, the storm raging within them, and he stepped towards her, crowding her next to the sink.

‘What?’ she whispered.

‘I can’t comfort myself,’ he said darkly, lowering his head towards hers. ‘I can’t comfort myself, Rey. I  _ missed  _ her,’ he added, and his voice broke. ‘I  _ missed  _ her. And for the rest of my life, I’m going to have to live with that. I let her down, Rey, I let her down.’

A single tear coursed down his face, and Rey reached up, brushing it away.

‘I don’t need you here, Rey,’ Ben whispered fiercely. ‘I  _ want  _ you here. There’s a difference.’

A heartbeat passed between them; a moment so full of longing and emotion that Rey could hardly breathe. Ben, as though emboldened by her silence, ducked his face closer to hers, brushing his lips over her own. He was soft and gentle, so gentle that their skin only just touched, but all the same, Rey felt his kiss go right through her body. 

_ He loved her. _

With an anguished cry she pulled away, turning and gripping the sink, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Ben groaned, rubbing his eyes and swearing lightly.

‘If you want that kind of  _ comfort, _ ’ Rey snapped, ‘you should call your  _ fiancée,  _ Ben.’ 

Ben’s face went white, as though Rey had physically slapped him. 

But his shock soon faded, and he stood taller, looking at her coolly.

‘You’re right,’ he said, and his voice was poisonously calm. ‘I should.’

He turned away from her, walking from the kitchen towards the hall.

‘I guess our days from the stream really are over,’ he said, without looking back. ‘Go home, Rey.’

***

_ Her Grandfather is sick. So sick, in fact, that he can no longer leave his room.  _

_ He has two nurses to care for him, although ostensibly, they are also there to watch Rey. But they don’t watch her like her Grandfather used to, and don’t care when she announces, clearly and without fear of reprisal, that she’s going out for a walk. _

_ ‘Fine, fine,’ one of them waves her away, glad to be rid of one of her charges. ‘Have fun - I’ll leave dinner on the table for you.’ _

_ Rey nods, already halfway out the door. _

_ She immediately heads in the direction of the stream, over the meadows and into the woods, very aware of the sound of footsteps following behind her. _

_ She doesn’t turn though. _

_ She doesn’t need to. _

_ She knows who it is. _

_ As soon as the stream is in view she strips off her shoes, wading into the water, laughing at the shock of cold. _

_ ‘You coming in?’ She says, turning to look at Ben, who leans against a nearby tree, watching her. _

_ He shrugs. ‘Why? I’ve got a pretty good view right where I am.’ _

_ She looks down, flushing slightly. _

_ ‘I thought you weren’t allowed out to play?’ Ben carries on, coming to a seat beneath the tree and stretching out his long legs. _

_ Rey shrugs back at him. ‘And I thought you weren’t allowed to talk to me?’ she retaliates, and watches as a slow smile spreads across his face.  _

_ ‘I’m not,’ he says. ‘But these days, I’m more willing to break the rules.’ _

_ Rey nods. She doesn’t tell him that she’s heard stories about him from her friends at school. Rumours of drugs, alcohol, and issues with his family.  _

_ ‘My Grandfather is sick,’ she says instead, balancing on one leg and bringing the other up behind her.  _

_ Ben stares at her. ‘Should I be sorry about that?’ _

_ His voice is free of malice or accusation. It is, however, laced with concern, and so she meets his eyes, keeping her voice even when she speaks. _

_ ‘No.’ _

_ He nods at that, not pressing her further, and they fall into a natural, easy silence, Rey watching Ben watch her watching him. _

_ ‘Ballet?’ He finally asks, gesturing to her stretching in the stream. _

_ She grins. ‘Eleven years and counting.’ _

_ They’re fifteen now. His brow furrows, and she watches him mentally do the maths. _

_ ‘You started young,’ he remarks, and she nods, switching legs. _

_ ‘My Grandfather raised me to be a certain way,’ she says. ‘Ballet, piano, art, elocution. He thought he was raising some kind of glamorous socialite,’ she frowns, ever-so-slightly, as she talks. ‘He acts so imperious about how well-educated I am, even though all he was really doing was throwing a treat in exchange for a performance,’ she indicates to her pointed toes, her perfect dance pose. Abruptly, she grimaces, shaking her head in disgust. ‘Like a well-trained parrot.’ _

_ ‘Thought he was raising a socialite?’ Ben asks, his face still but curious. ‘Well, if he wasn’t, what was he raising then?’ _

_ Rey stops, bringing her leg down, stretching out her arms and staring at him.  _

_ ‘I don’t know. I’m no parrot, though,’ she shrugs. ‘I'm too plain. Too colourless. I’m like a...’ she pauses, her eyes searching the skies above her. ‘Like a sparrow, I guess,’ she says with a wry smile. ‘Completely ordinary. Completely unexceptional.’ Abruptly, a lump forms in her throat and she swallows it down. ‘I’m a disappointment to him, you know.’ _

_ For a few moments, Ben watches her.  _

_ ‘I know a little something about that,’ he admits. ‘I’m a disappointment to my family too. They’re a flock of parrots,’ he says, with a bitter smile. ‘Each and every one of them. And they want me to be a parrot too, Rey. They try not to let it show, but their hopes for me are written all over their faces and... and I know I should want to be like them... to be a high achiever, a star in my field, but...’ with a sigh, he shrugs. ‘But I’d rather be a sparrow too.’ _

_ She nods, opening her mouth to speak, before Ben suddenly straightens, staring at her hotly. _

_ ‘You aren’t plain or colourless, Rey. And you’re anything but ordinary.’ _

_ She feels her cheeks fill with colour, and she bites her lip, looking down. _

_ ‘Rey,’ he says, ‘look at me.’ _

_ She keeps her head down, unwilling to look up, unwilling - or perhaps just plain scared - to face him. _

_ ‘Rey - ’ he says again, but she cuts him off. _

_ ‘Did you ever see him again?’ She asks, spinning around and turning her head to the sky. _

_ She can feel the scowl on Ben’s face, even from here. _

_ ‘Rey - ’ _

_ ‘I’ve thought about him, you know. Looked for him sometimes from my window.’ _

_ ‘Who?’ _

_ ‘The songbird,’ she says, looking over her shoulder at him. ‘The one we saw here, all that time ago.’ _

_ His eyes flare at the memory and he nods. _

_ ‘Yeah. I saw him again.’ _

_ ‘Did he find a mate?’ _

_ Ben pauses, and Rey feels his eyes lingering on her skin. All of a sudden she feels a warmth build in her belly, and she swallows nervously. _

_ ‘Yeah,’ Ben says softly. ‘He did.’ _

_ ‘Do you see him still?’ _

_ Ben nods. ‘I see them together. Songbirds like that... once they’ve found a mate, they stay with them for life.’ _

_ ‘Really?’ Rey asks. _

_ Ben smiles at her. It’s gentle and kind and full of warmth. ‘You believe in soulmates?’ _

_ She flushes. ‘No,’ she lies. _

_ Ben shakes his head. ‘I do.’ _

_ She stares at him. ‘You do?’ _

_ There’s a disbelief in her voice. Because this is Ben Solo, after all. Popular, distant, entrancing Ben Solo. And he’s here, talking to her, of all people. And about soulmates, of all things too. _

_ His eyes leave hers, scanning the canopy of trees. _

_ ‘Yeah, I believe in them. I figure if birds can find one, why not us, hey?’ _

_ She swallows again. ‘Ben - ’ _

_ ‘You coming back here?’ He asks suddenly. ‘Again, I mean?’ _

_ She nods, her mouth dry. ‘You can’t tell anyone,’ she says quietly. _

_ He nods. ‘I won’t tell anyone. I kind of like it, in fact, having it all to ourselves. It’ll be our secret, Rey,’ he smiles at her, his voice like butter. ‘Our secret.’ _

_ ‘Our secret,’ she says back, her voice just as low, feeling instant gratification when she is rewarded by another of Ben’s smiles. _

_ A lovers pact, she suddenly thinks. This is a lovers pact. _

_ And she can only begin to pray that it remains unbroken. _

_ *** _

Rey emptied every single letter from the chest into her bag, scowling at the image of the songbird and sparrow on top, carved into the wood.

She slammed the lid closed with a satisfying thump, covering it with a blanket, consigning it to the past where it belonged. 

She closed the attic behind her, storming through the house. When she reached the front door, she saw Ben in the living room. He looked up, his eyes meeting hers, his gaze heavy and searching.

She stared back, trying to keep memory at bay, grasping onto the present, and to cold, hard reality.

_ He loves you,  _ her mind offered, and for a moment she faltered, her breath catching in her throat, before coming out in a ragged exhale.

Ben immediately stood, looking pale.

‘Rey,’ he said, his voice pained.. 

One word, one syllable; weighted down by past and meaning. Rey closed her eyes to the sight of him.

‘I have to go,’ she said sadly, ‘I have to go.’

She walked slowly back to her own home, through the gate Leia installed the year her Grandfather died. Spring flowers are budding around her, and she can’t help but to think of the stream. 

The trees will be green, she thought. The water would be cool and the trees would be green and Ben’s kiss on the grass would be warm and searching.

Her house was cold and empty when she walked in. She sighed, filling and flicking on her kettle before emptying the letters onto her kitchen table. 

She stared at them. There were so many of them, and all of them filled with Ben’s love and longing, Rey realised.

Abruptly, she reached down, searching through them, looking for a year, for a particular month. When she found it, it was on a yellowed piece of paper that smelt of oak and ink.

It reminded her so much of Ben that she sighed, holding the letter to her chest.

Closer to her heart.

_ Rey, _

_ You spoke to me. You actually spoke to me.  _

_ I’ve wanted to talk to you for so long now. For years, since the songbird. I think of you all the time. In my mind, I’ve had conversation after conversation with you, working out what I would say, how I would act. And then today, when I saw you, I acted like an idiot. I didn’t say any of the things I wanted to. _

_ But I’m going to see you again. We’ve promised each other that. Both of us. _

_ You called yourself a sparrow. You think it’s something plain, something ordinary. But Rey, sparrows are songbirds too, did you know that? They’re songbirds. They’re beautiful, just like you. _

_ I love you so much. _

_ Please, please, please, meet me again. _

_ Ben. _

In her kitchen, hugging the letter, Rey began to cry.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Why?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone is well and safe.xx

_ Ben was right. _

_ The stream does become their little secret. _

_ They meet everyday after school, Rey’s homework abandoned in a heap by the stream, her feet perpetually bare and in the water. Ben never joins her, sitting instead on the bank or under a tree, a notebook balanced on his lap and a pen in his hand. _

_ ‘You never join me,’ Rey complains one day, stretching her arms up to the sky. ‘You never wade in the stream with me.’ _

_ Ben seems to consider her words. He opens his mouth, as though to speak, before closing it, his brow furrowing. ‘Well, maybe there are leeches,’ he finally says, and Rey laughs. _

_ ‘No,’ she says, holding up a perfectly smooth leg. ‘No leeches. The current moves too fast for that.’ _

_ ‘Maybe I just don’t like the water then,’ Ben suggests, and Rey stares at him. _

_ ‘That’s a lie,’ she replies instantly. ‘You know how I know? Sometimes, when you think I’m not looking, you get this look in your eyes, and I can see how much you’d like to join me.’ _

_ ‘In my eyes?’ Ben asks. _

_ ‘Mmm,’ Rey answers absently. ‘You get this... I don’t know... intense look of longing in them. You love the water. Admit it.’ _

_ Ben shrugs, but says nothing. He opens his notebook, flipping to a new page, and Rey watches as he begins to scrawl across the lines.  _

_ She looks away from him, knowing she’s lost him for the next twenty minutes or so.  _

_ She doesn’t know what he’s writing in those notebooks. She never asks, she never pries, and she knows she never will. Ben, she’s beginning to understand, is a deeply private person who shares only what he wants to be seen or heard. Everything else, all the nuances and hidden thoughts and feelings, stay locked behind a wall. _

_ Strangely, this doesn’t bother her. Rey knows Ben shares more with her than he does anyone else, and that little by little, that wall is slowly being chipped away.  _

_ It’s the stream, she thinks, looking around her. Here, by this calm flow of water, she and Ben are alone. It’s just them, and they’re safe here. Safe in this place, and with each other. She can tell Ben anything here, and she knows he’ll keep it safe. Lock it behind his wall, and keep it from the world. _

_ Just like them, Rey thinks. Just like their... well, not relationship, that isn’t the right word. And neither is friendship, Rey knows. What lies between them runs deeper than that, even if nobody else knows about it.  _

_ It’s companionship, Rey eventually decides. They’re companions to one another, and to this stream. They share this place just as much as they share their time together. _

_ Companions, Rey thinks again, looking at him. _

_ As if sensing her eyes upon him, Ben looks up. _

_ ‘What is it?’ He asks, and Rey bites on her lip, worrying the flesh between her teeth. _

_ ‘Do you tell anyone about me?’ _

_ Now, Ben stares back at her. ‘Tell anyone? No, of course not.’ _

_ ‘But don’t people ask? Don’t they wonder where you’re going every afternoon?’ _

_ Ben continues to stare at her, his eyes searching. ‘You mean my mother? Or...?’ _

_ Or.  _

_ Rey swallows. ‘Anyone,’ she says, more than a little awkwardly. _

_ Ben looks down. ‘If you mean Bazine, just say so, Rey.’ _

_ Rey bites her lip again. ‘It’s not my place to pry - ’ _

_ ‘What about Poe?’ Ben asks suddenly, his voice unusually sharp. ‘Do you tell him about us? About here?’ _

_ Rey shakes her head. ‘No.’ _

_ ‘The whole school knows about you and him, by the way,’ Ben scowls. ‘You’re not hiding anything well - ’ _

_ ‘What, like you and Bazine - ’ _

_ Ben slams his notebook shut. ‘There’s nothing between me and Bazine.’ _

_ ‘Nothing?’ Rey asks, one eyebrow raised, and Ben gazes at her evenly. _

_ ‘Nothing meaningful,’ he corrects himself.  _

_ It’s like a sucker punch to her gut and Rey forces herself to breathe through the pain.  _

_ ‘Like I said, it’s not my place to pry.’ _

_ For a moment, they fall into a deep silence. The stream moves beside them, the sound of rushing water the only sound between them. _

_ Finally, Ben sighs. _

_ ‘Your Grandfather ever take you out for lunch, or dinner, or anything?’ He asks her, and Rey frowns.  _

_ ‘What?’ _

_ ‘You’ve been to a restaurant, right?’ _

_ She nods.  _

_ ‘Well, you go to a restaurant because you’re hungry. And when you get there, you run through the menu, and pick what you would like. But say you make your order, and the waiter comes back and says, ‘sorry, you can’t have that,’ what do you do?’ _

_ Rey frowns. ‘Order again?’ _

_ ‘Right.’ Ben says, nodding and looking at her keenly.  _

_ ‘I don’t understand - ’ _

_ Ben sighs. ‘Rey, I was hungry, and Bazine was on the menu,’ he says simply. A look crosses his face, somewhere between regret and wistfulness. ‘Doesn’t mean she was my first choice though.’ _

_ Rey’s mouth drops open, and she looks down.  _

_ ‘Tell me about Poe.’ _

_ At that, she looks up again. _

_ ‘What about Poe?’ _

_ ‘You and him. At school, you’re always together - ’ _

_ ‘No,’ she retorts hotly. ‘I’m always with Rose, who’s always with Finn, who’s always with Poe. I’m not always with Poe.’ _

_ Ben stares at her. ‘He seems to like you plenty.’ _

_ ‘Maybe he does,’ Rey says, giving a nonchalant shrug. ‘I wouldn’t know. I find him...’ she stops, habitually lifting her leg into the Arabesque position while she thinks. ‘Frustrating,’ she eventually settles on. ‘He frustrates me.’ _

_ ‘In what sort of way?’ Ben asks, and Rey turns her head to him. _

_ ‘What do you mean?’ _

_ ‘People can frustrate you in a bad way, and people can frustrate you in a good way,’ Ben clarifies. ‘Which one is Poe?’ _

_ Rey grimaces. ‘The bad way. Honestly, he’s always on at me to do something. Can I go here, can I go there...’ she frowns again. ‘He keeps saying I shouldn’t always do what my Grandfather tells me... like he has any idea of the repercussions if I - ’ she stops suddenly, aware of perhaps having said too much, and looks over to Ben, who is watching her with a muted kind of sadness.  _

_ ‘It’s okay,’ he says softly. ‘I already figured out what’s been going on for myself. He hits you, right?’ _

_ Rey nods. ‘Yes. At least, he used to,’ she swallows nervously. ‘Before he got sick.’ _

_ Ben pauses. ‘He didn’t...?’ _

_ His words fall away delicately, but Rey knows what he means. ‘No. Not that. Never that.’ _

_ Ben nods, and Rey sees him exhale deeply, as though letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.  _

_ ‘You could always tell Poe to mind his own fucking business, you know,’ Ben says, switching back to their earlier topic, and Rey sighs. _

_ ‘He’s very persistent,’ she tells him. ‘Like, there’s this party on Friday next week, and Finn’s going, which means Rose is going, which means that I should go and - ’ _

_ ‘Wait,’ Ben interrupts. ‘Party? You mean the gathering at the old Resistance nightclub?’ _

_ Rey nods. ‘You’ve been there?’ _

_ Ben scowls. ‘That place was shut down for a reason,’ he says darkly. ‘It’s mostly bored teenagers now, congregating on the edge of town in a shuttered shithole of a building, drinking and drugs and sex and - ’ he stops, his eyes going to hers sharply. ‘Don’t go to that party, Rey.’ _

_ Somewhere, under the authority of his words, something in Rey stirs angrily. ‘You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do,’ she bristles. _

_ Ben swears under his breath. ‘No,’ he says, through clenched teeth. ‘But I can advise you on what’s best for you, and trust me, you don’t want to go to that party. Tell Poe to fuck off.’ _

_ Something in Ben’s eyes is wild in that moment, and Rey can see that his anger is tightly leashed in her presence. Now, she knows, is not the time to antagonise him. _

_ Wait for the storm to pass, she tells herself. Wait for the clouds in him to clear. _

_ And so she nods, dragging herself from the stream and sitting next to Ben while she dries her feet and finds her shoes. _

_ ‘I should go,’ she says. ‘The carers have been told to look out for me. If I’m not home by dinner...’ _

_ Ben nods. ‘I’ll walk you back.’ _

_ But Rey sighs and shakes her head. ‘No. They might see.’ _

_ The storm in his eyes seems to surge at that, before he clenches his fists, nodding at the ground. _

_ ‘Fine.’ _

_ She reaches for her bag, her homework and jacket, before turning back to Ben curiously. _

_ ‘Who frustrates you in a good way?’ she asks, looking at him keenly. _

_ His head snaps up to hers. ‘What?’ _

_ ‘You said earlier... about people frustrating you in a good way... it sounded like you had experience...’ _

_ Ben flushes. ‘Does it even matter?’ _

_ Rey pauses. ‘Well, I - ’ _

_ Ben shakes his head, coming to a stand and shoving his notebook into his bag. ‘Rey,’ he says, and his voice is firm. ‘Don’t go to that party.’  _

***

Rey threw herself into work. 

It was the obvious answer really, now that Leia was gone.

She mailed letters and made phone calls and grit her teeth when people made apologies, their voices pained. 

‘I’m so sorry,’ they all said, ‘it must be so hard, to lose your mother like that.’

There was no point in correcting them. No point in saying that she wasn’t the daughter, only the business partner. No point in saying, ‘oh no, she wasn’t my Mum, just my neighbour,’ and waiting for the awkward pause. 

No point in telling them about Ben.

Most of them had forgotten about him anyway.

Rey found herself falling into a pattern. Work, sleep, and repeat. It was cathartic and empty and mindless and painless all at once.

She pointedly ignored the box of letters in the corner of her living room. 

There was no point in reading them, she told herself firmly. 

Ben had forgotten all the feelings within them anyway.

There is one date that niggled in her mind though, and occasionally, her eyes would flicker towards the bag, and she would bite her lip in curiosity.

Had he written a letter about that? Had he written her a love note after what happened, there at the stream?

When she couldn’t help herself, Rey would lie in bed thinking about it, desperately curious and yet terrified to look. Because what if he hadn’t written? What if it hadn’t meant anything to him? Rey didn’t think her heart could handle that.

A week after Leia’s death, there was a knock at her door.

It was Ben.

Rey let him into her home with a still face, mechanically pouring coffee and gesturing for him to sit without enthusiasm, desperately trying to keep her heart from racing in his presence.

Ben looked around her home with interested eyes. ‘You’ve redecorated,’ he said blandly, and Rey shrugged.

‘Yes.’

It was lighter now, her home, the walls a mix of earthy colours, sandy yellows like the desert, and blues like the sea. She remembered the dark years and dark tones of her Grandfather with a shudder, grateful again for the release of his death.

‘It’s nice,’ Ben said, and Rey nodded.

‘After you left,’ she said, hoping her words didn’t sound as pointed as they felt, ‘Your Mum said I should change everything. We spent that summer painting and shopping in antique stores for knick-knacks and I thought... ’ Rey stopped, remembering Leia with a sharp pang of pain and feeling tears prick at her eyes. ‘Well,’ she said, somewhat lamely. ‘I changed the whole place, in the end.’

‘I only ever saw this room, during his funeral,’ Ben noted. 

‘You saw my bedroom,’ Rey corrected him, and Ben shrugged.

‘Yeah, but I had to climb up a tree to get there,’ his voice sounded almost wistful. ‘I used to climb up that old oak with a bottle of something in one hand and a prayer in the other,’ he looked at her darkly. ‘You took it down?’

Rey swallowed nervously. ‘You noticed?’

‘That the tree is gone?’ Ben said, a note of accusation in his words. ‘Of course I noticed.’

Rey shrugged. ‘It ate up so much light,’ she explained, unsure of why she felt so nervous. ‘And then the roots... there was worry that they might go under the foundations of both houses. So, I had it taken down.’

Ben nodded, and Rey wasn’t sure if he believed her or not.

Not that it mattered. This was her house now, she reminded herself.

‘I’ve arranged the funeral,’ Ben said suddenly, and Rey felt a dart of shock.

‘You did?’

‘Yes. In her will, she mentioned you... well, several times,’ Ben cleared his throat. ‘She wanted you to give a reading.’

‘Oh,’ Rey said, biting on her lip. 

So  _ that’s  _ why he was there.

‘She wanted you to read ‘Tonight I can Write the Saddest Lines,’ by Neruda,’ Ben stated. 

‘I don’t know it.’

Ben closed his eyes. ‘ _ In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.’  _ He opened his eyes again, and met Rey’s without flinching. ‘She knew Neruda - my mother, that is - they worked together, once upon a time. He was a diplomat too. She would read his poetry to me by night.’

‘Oh,’ Rey said, without surprise. Leia had been a woman of many interests, friends and talents. 

‘If you need a copy of the poem, there’s one at my Mother’s house - ’ Ben stopped, his face suddenly dropping. ‘I mean, at my house.’

‘Thank you,’ Rey nodded. ‘I’ll drop by and pick that up later.’

She stood, as though to show him out, and he stood too. When they were at her door, she suddenly stopped.

‘Do you still write poetry?’ she asked, before she could stop the words from leaving her mouth. Ben stared at her, seemingly surprised by her words.

‘Do you still dance?’ he asked, and it was sharp, retaliation almost. 

She shook her head. ‘No.’

Something in his face changed, and he looked at her darkly. ‘Well, why the fuck do you expect me to still be writing poetry then? We’re not kids anymore, Rey.’

‘I know - ’

‘You gave up on your dream, and I gave up on mine,’ Ben carried on spitefully. 

‘You didn’t have to... not because of me...’

‘Don’t,’ Ben said forcefully. ‘Don’t you even dare... we’ve had this conversation already, remember?’

Rey nodded, and she could feel the colour draining from her face. 

‘You made your decision, Rey,’ Ben added. ‘Let’s not go over it again, shall we?’

‘I never wanted you to give up,’ Rey said, and she wiped at her eyes tiredly. ‘That was never what I wanted.’

Ben shook his head at her. ‘I didn’t give up, Rey. I grew up. Just like you.’

‘But you - ’

‘I was just a stupid kid who wrote poetry and letters in a notebook, and - ’ Ben stopped, eyeing her suddenly. Rey flushed. 

_ I know about the letters,  _ she wanted to say.  _ I know how you felt about me. _

_ I wish I knew how you felt about me now. _

But she kept silent.

‘Look,’ Ben suddenly sighed. ‘Let’s just leave the past in the past, where it belongs. I don’t want you for an enemy, Rey. I know our families were... but you and I, we always said we would never be like them and... look, let’s just be kind to one another, okay?’

‘Yes,’ Rey nodded automatically, unable to meet his gaze. ‘Yes.’

She heard him sigh once more before he turned for his home, and she closed the door on his retreating figure.

***

It was later that night that she couldn’t help herself. She dug through the pile of letters, until she found the date she was looking for. 

It was a thin letter, with just two words hastily scrawled upon it in angry black letters.

_ Rey,  _ it said.  _ Why? _

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven’t read Pablo Neruda’s love poems, please please please do. The one mentioned in this chapter he wrote in 1924.


	6. Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this fic is told in dual timelines, and I’m experimenting to see if I can get the crux moment in both stories to peak at the same time. So, the story unravels over each chapter, until the ‘all is revealed’ moment.
> 
> I’m not sure I can pull this off but desperately hoping I can.
> 
> Hope everyone is safe and well.x

_ On Friday night, Rey’s just about to go to bed when she hears a rustle at her window. _

_ ‘God dammit,’ she hears a voice utter, before a hand, the fingers long and lean and completely recognisable, wraps itself around her window sill. _

_ ‘Ben!’ She exclaims, scrabbling over to the window and opening it higher. ‘What are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?’ She leans out and glances down to the ground, her eyes swimming at the distance. ‘You’re crazy, you know that, right?’  _

_ He hauls himself into her room with a breathless thump, lying on her carpet and grinning up at her. _

_ ‘Yeah,’ he says easily. ‘Worth it though.’ _

_ She crosses her arms and stares down at him. ‘If anyone saw you - ’ _

_ ‘They didn’t,’ Ben assures her quickly. ‘My Uncle’s visiting, and my Mom and Dad will be talking with him for hours. They won’t even know I’m gone, trust me. Besides, it's late. They already think I’m asleep.’ _

_ Rey nods, though her eyes shift to her own door worriedly. It’s an act that isn’t lost on Ben, who sits up on his elbows, looking at her softly. _

_ ‘How is he - ?’ _

_ ‘Dying,’ Rey says, her voice cold.  _

_ ‘Then we don’t need to worry about him. He won’t find out,’ Ben replies easily. ‘No one will ever know, Rey. It’ll be our secret.’ _

_ ‘Like the stream,’ she says softly, and sees Ben nod. _

_ ‘Yeah. Just like the stream.’ _

_ She helps him up at that, pulling him to his feet and then watching, suddenly nervous, as he looks around her room. _

_ ‘Wow,’ he exhales, looking back to her. ‘This is... something else.’ _

_ It’s the perfect room for a little girl. The walls are lined with a delicate floral wallpaper, while the ragrugs are powder pink and soft beneath her toes. There are sketches of ballerinas across her walls, Anna Pavlova and Galina Ulanova and Alicia Markova, while her bed is covered with a dimity pink bedspread. _

_ ‘He chose it,’ Rey explains instantly. ‘Well, everything except...’ she gestures to the ballerinas, a flush rising on her cheeks. ‘Those are mine.’ _

_ Ben turns to her with interest. ‘You love it, don’t you? Even though he forced you into it, you love it.’ _

_ ‘Yes,’ Rey nods. ‘I love it. I hate him, but I can’t hate dance.’ She sighs, turning to Ben with a rueful expression on her face. ‘Ballet should be tainted for me, shouldn’t it? Because it came from him. He’s the one who made me go. He’s the one who wanted the pretty little granddaughter in the pretty pink tutu. But I can’t feel revulsion for it. I just can’t. I love it too much. When I dance...’ she trails off, abruptly embarrassed by just how honest she’s being.  _

_ ‘When you dance...?’ Ben encourages her, his eyes on hers, dark and searching. _

_ Rey gives him a small smile. ‘I don’t know how to describe it. I suppose, in a way, it makes me feel free. I don’t often feel free. I’m just a little sparrow in a gilded cage, at the end of the day.’ _

_ Ben smiles back at her, before going to her bed and climbing onto it. He leans back tiredly, so that his head rests against her wall, looking at her with weary eyes. Against the gentle pinks of her pillow and blankets, he looks large, dark and entirely masculine, and Rey swallows nervously. _

_ ‘You aren’t a sparrow in a cage,’ he says gently. ‘You’re more like one of those princesses in a fairy tale, being held hostage by a terrible beast in a castle guarded by a dragon, or in a tower at the top of a hill, or - ’ _

_ ‘Like Rapunzel,’ Rey interjects, going to Ben’s side and curling up in a ball next to him. She suddenly feels exhausted, and Ben’s body is serene and firm against her skin. She sighs, closing her eyes in pleasure at the comforting warmth of him. ‘You mean like Rapunzel.’ _

_ To her surprise, she suddenly feels Ben’s hand knot itself into her hair. He begins to stroke it, firm fingers against her scalp before drifting lazily through her tresses, and she sighs again. _

_ ‘I don’t remember that one,’ he says lightly. _

_ ‘Rapunzel? She was held prisoner in a tower by a haggard witch.’ _

_ ‘Why?’ _

_ ‘Her parents...’ Rey says, with a yawn. ‘They stole from the witch, I can’t remember what... it doesn’t matter, I guess. All that matters is that they stole from her, so she stole from them. She took their baby.’ _

_ She can hear Ben exhale, and feels a question hanging in the air. The usual question. The only one. _

_ What happened to her parents? _

_ She speaks again quickly, before the words can leave his lips. ‘A prince heard her singing one day, and came to find her. They fell in love.’ _

_ ‘I’m gonna bet the witch didn’t like that one little bit,’ Ben replies, his hand still firmly raking through her hair. _

_ ‘No. When she discovered him, the witch threw him from the tower. He was blinded by the thorns that grew below, and staggered away. He searched for Rapunzel afterwards for years.’ _

_ Without thinking, Rey presses herself further into Ben’s warmth, and feels him pull a blanket over them both.  _

_ ‘Don’t fall asleep,’ he warns her softly. ‘Not yet, okay?’ _

_ ‘Mmm,’ Rey says, although she’s already feeling the heady warmth of sleep sneak into her veins. _

_ ‘Rey,’ Ben says more firmly, ‘don’t fall asleep. Tell me what happens next, in your story. Does Rapunzel ever escape the witch?’ _

_ ‘She kills her,’ Rey replies sleepily. ‘She tricks the witch into falling to her death. And then Rapunzel leaves her tower forever, to search for her prince.’ _

_ ‘Not her parents?’ _

_ Rey swallows. ‘No. They aren’t important to the story. Or maybe they weren’t to hers, by that point. She wanted her prince.’ _

_ Next to her, she can feel Ben chuckle lightly. ‘Does she ever find him?’ _

_ ‘They find each other,’ Rey tells him. ‘He hears her singing one day, years later, and they reunite. And her tears... her tears of happiness... they heal him.’ At that, she opens her eyes, gazing up at Ben, who stares back down at her intently. She can’t help herself and she reaches up, cupping his cheek gently within her palm. Ben presses his face to her hand, kissing the pulse point of her wrist. ‘They heal each other.’ _

_ ‘I like that,’ Ben whispers. ‘You know, it sounds like Rapunzel was a sparrow in a gilded cage too. Just like you.’ _

_ Rey nods. ‘Maybe. I’m not searching for a prince though.’ _

_ Ben smiles at that. ‘No,’ he agrees. ‘Like Rapunzel, you’re just trying to escape; you’re both sparrows, wanting to fly.’ _

_ Rey closes her eyes again. ‘Fly away and never come back,’ she says softly. _

_ ‘Where would you fly?’ Ben asks, and he lowers himself so that he’s lying next to her now, two heads sharing a pillow. ‘If you could leave tomorrow, where would you fly to?’ _

_ ‘Leningrad, maybe,’ Rey whispers. ‘Or Paris. Or London. Anywhere with a good ballet school.’ _

_ Ben nods, using his hand to brush her hair from her eyes. _

_ ‘What about you?’ she asks, opening her eyes, and he smiles at her, running his hand through her hair once more. _

_ ‘I kind of like where I am right now,’ he says. ‘This is good.’ _

_ She licks her lips at that, a sudden nervousness stealing into her blood. ‘Ben,’ she starts, feeling a question build within her. ‘Did you climb up here tonight just to make sure I didn’t go to that party?’ _

_ He shrugs, looking completely unfazed by her question. ‘I climbed up here tonight because I wanted to see you.’  _

_ It’s not a denial, Rey realises. ‘Why?’ she asks, trying to ignore Ben’s eyes lingering on her lips. _

_ He sighs, his breath a gentle exhalation next to her, his hand still playing with the ends of her hair. ‘Because, when you see a princess in a tower, you want to set them free. When you see a sparrow in a cage, you want to watch them fly.’ _

_ A quiet falls across the room, gentle and still. Minutes pass by, time in which Rey only knows the pleasurable heat of Ben’s body lying next to hers, and of the sounds of his breath, even and deep. It’s mesmerising, and she closes her eyes, ready to sleep in the crook of his arm. _

_ But he pulls away. _

_ ‘I have to go,’ he says.  _

_ ‘Ben - ’ _

_ ‘Be at the stream tomorrow morning, okay?’  _

_ He presses a kiss to her forehead, and she sits up, staring at him as he makes his way back to her window. _

_ ‘Ben - ?’ _

_ He glances up, looking at her questioningly, and she blushes suddenly. _

_ ‘Come back tomorrow night.’ _

_ He nods. _

_ ‘Of course.’ _

__ __ __ __ __ _ *** _

She waited a few days before going to collect the book of poems from Ben. She tried the local bookstore in town, but the bookseller had scratched his head at her request.

‘Neruda?’ He’d asked. ‘Never had that one requested before. Poetry - especially foreign poetry - isn’t really a big seller around these parts. Not something I normally keep in stock. I can order it for you, but it might take a week or two.’

Rey sighed, shaking her head. ‘No, I need it sooner. It’s for a...’ she stopped, taking a deep breath. ‘For a funeral.’

The bookseller nodded with understanding. ‘Anyone got a copy they can lend you, maybe?’

Rey sighed again. ‘Yes.’

When she knocked on Leia’s - no, not Leia’s, it was  _ Ben’s  _ door now - she stood awkwardly, chewing on her lip. 

Ben stared at her when he opened the door.

‘You want the book,’ he said bluntly.

No greetings. No stilted hellos, or awkward enquiries as to her health. 

That’s what they’d come to. Sharp words, direct and to the point.

Rey stiffened.

‘Yes,’ she told him. ‘I want the book.’

‘Come in,’ he nodded over his shoulder. ‘I’ll get it for you. Actually, I have some other things for you while you’re over. You might as well take them now.’

‘Other things?’ Rey asked. 

‘Mom left some stuff to you in her will. Personal things. Obviously the business and money side of things...’ his voice drifted off, and Rey nodded.

‘The lawyers are dealing with that side of things,’ she told him. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to cheat you out of your inheritance.’

He glanced up at that, looking at her sharply.

‘Like I give a fuck about my inheritance.’

‘It belongs to you - ’

‘I never wanted it. I still don’t want it.’

‘You’re going to have to take it anyway - ’

‘Rey,’ Ben’s voice lowered dangerously. ‘I don’t fucking want it.’

For a moment they stared at each other.

‘Fine,’ Rey said, breaking her gaze from his. ‘I’ll buy your half.’

Ben’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’ll buy it?’

‘Yes. For a reasonable price, I mean... I’ll have to speak with the bank, maybe mortgage the house, but yes... I’ll buy it.’

Something in Ben’s eyes shifted, and they narrowed dangerously. ‘A reasonable price?’

‘You know the exact financial state of New Republic Enterprises,’ Rey shrugged. ‘You know what I can afford.’

‘Tell you what,’ Ben said, and suddenly, his voice was silky smooth. ‘You can have my half of the company in exchange for the land behind the two houses.’

Rey felt a dart of shock. ‘The land?’

‘Yes. All of it. Our grandfathers bought it, intending to develop it. Why not finish their legacy?’

‘But... they could never get permission to build... and... and...’

‘And what?’ Ben asked softly.

‘And that’s where the stream is,’ she finished, somewhat pathetically.

Silence fell between them, and Rey saw Ben breath out, as though he was trying to steady himself.

‘So?’ he asked. ‘It’s just a stream, isn’t it, Rey?’

Rey felt her hands begin to shake. This was all beginning to feel like some kind of test, where no answer was the right one, and she was destined to fail.

‘Ben...’

‘It’s just a stream, isn’t it?’ he asked again, lowering his head towards hers, so that he whispered in her ear. ‘Say it Rey... tell me it isn’t important.’

She bit her lip hard, keeping her face to the ground.

‘You tore down the tree,’ Ben reminded her, his breath warm on her cheek. ‘So I’ll destroy the stream. Let’s be rid of all the evidence, hey?’

Rey didn’t say a word, her fists clenched, her eyes firmly on Ben’s carpet. Ben sighed, and stepped away.

‘Think about it. The company is worth more than the land, and clearly, the land means nothing to you. Let it go, Rey.’

Rey drew in a ragged breath. She had to keep it together. Looking up, she met Ben’s eyes. They were still hard, still angry, and there was nothing of the boy who had once loved her in them. Her face softened, and she exhaled sadly.

‘Oh, Ben,’ she whispered, and he startled at her gentle tone.

It was like a fissure running down his cheek; a scar opening, revealing the real Ben beneath. His exterior was hard and jaded, but underneath.... Underneath he was soft and gentle and kind, and she saw him in that moment for who he really was, and not what he wanted to show.

‘Ben,’ she whispered again, as the fissure healed, and he withdrew away from her once more.

‘I’ll get the book, and some of the things she wanted to give you.’

When he returned, Rey’s heart began to hammer wildly in her chest. For cradled in his arms was the wooden chest from the attic, the sparrow and songbird carving bright in the daylight. Carelessly, Ben dumped it onto the table, before throwing the book of Neruda poetry on top.

‘There’s more,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Clothes, some paintings... but this was what I could find to hand.’

‘I shouldn’t,’ Rey said, her voice trembling, her eyes still on the chest. ‘These are your mother’s things... I shouldn’t... you should keep them.’

‘I have no use for women’s clothing, Rey,’ Ben commented wryly.

Rey shook her head. ‘You might have a daughter one day... you should keep them for her.’

Ben shrugged. ‘I’ve given up holding onto things because of hopes for ‘some day’ or ‘when it happens’,’ he said coldly. ‘Take them.’

Rey nodded, her eyes still on the chest, her heart still beating fast. Did Ben know what had been in that wooden box? Had he put the letters in there? Or had it been Leia?

Ben’s eyes followed hers, and saw them lingering on the chest. ‘Mom’s will was specific when it came to that box,’ he said, and Rey could hear the slight confusion in his voice. ‘She wrote that it was to be yours, plus it's contents. ‘It’s about time she knew,’ Mom wrote,’ Ben added, with a shrug. ‘Whatever that means.’

Leia then, Rey realised, her heart sinking a little. Leia had put the letters inside that chest. 

‘I found it in the attic, completely empty,’ Ben told her. ‘An inheritance of an empty chest... knowing Mom, she probably hoped you’d find some sort of spiritual epiphany inside or something. That, or it was some sort of joke.’

‘Your Mom didn’t think like that,’ Rey replied, her mouth dry.

‘No, you’re right. Mom was many things, but a joker wasn’t one of them. Her humour was more waspish... had a real sting, Mom did. It’s strange though, it looked like it had been opened recently,’ Ben remarked. ‘Fingerprints on the lid, and dust removed in places. I wonder what was inside.’

‘Letters,’ Rey whispered, before she could think.

Ben’s eyes were sharp, and went straight to her face. ‘Letters?’ he snapped. ‘What letters?’

Rey shook her head sadly. ‘Just old correspondance... it doesn’t matter anymore.’

‘From who?’

Rey shook her head again. ‘Someone who has long gone,’ she said. ‘I told you, it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.’

‘Rey - ’ Ben began to speak, his voice pained. But Rey cut him off quickly, picking up the chest and book. 

‘I’ll think about the stream, and your offer,’ she said, her words businesslike, always the consummate professional.

‘Rey - ’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she added, balancing the box in her arms. ‘Perhaps it's time to let things go.’

  
  


***

She put the letters back in their box, one by one. It felt right, in a way. It felt like sending them home. She tried not to think about them, tried not to imagine what lay inside each lovingly sealed envelope. But on one she paused, holding the letter to her chest before tenderly opening the seal.

It wasn’t addressed to Rey.

It was addressed to ‘the princess, in her tower’.

_ You say you aren’t searching for a prince,  _ Ben wrote.  _ And that’s fine. That’s the way it should be. After all, when the prince stumbled across the tower, he wasn’t searching for a princess.  _

_ But he’s so glad he found her.  _

_ And I can’t wait to see you free. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


__


	7. Stop Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Realistically this story can not be finished in the word count I had set. I’ve mapped the story out, so I know how it ends, and I’m working towards something in one chapter that I AM VERY PROUD OF.

_ Poe is surprisingly flippant that Rey missed the party. _

_ ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologises on Monday, her words rushed, ‘it’s just that I’m so rarely allowed out, and my Grandfather is sick...’ _

_ She doesn’t mention Ben. She never mentions Ben.  _

_ ‘I meant to make it, I really did - ’ _

_ But Poe cuts her off with an easy grin. _

_ ‘Rey, Rey, honey, relax,’ he says, swinging his letterman jacket over one shoulder. ‘So, you missed a party. It’s no problem.’ _

_ ‘Oh,’ Rey exhales. She’d been invited out by Poe Dameron, and no girl in school was crazy enough to turn him down. She’d half expected to be a social pariah today, unforgiven and ignored, but Poe seems completely at ease, and hardly bothered by her absence at all. ‘Oh, I thought you might be... annoyed with me, or - ’ _

_ ‘Nah,’ Poe shakes his head. ‘It would’ve been great if you made it, not gonna lie. But hey, it didn’t work out, and you couldn’t make it.’ He winks at her. ‘We’re still friends, you and me. Don’t sweat it, sweetheart.’ _

_ Sweetheart. The endearment sounds grating from Poe’s lips, and she looks down with a wince. _

_ ‘Besides, you weren’t the only one not to make it,’ Poe adds, and Rey looks up again. _

_ ‘What do you mean?’ _

_ ‘I mean Solo and Bazine didn’t attend either,’ Poe says with a grin. _

_ Ben, thinks Rey. He means Ben. _

_ ‘Oh,’ she says, frowning. ‘I didn’t know they were... regulars.’ _

_ Poe nods. ‘Yeah. Every Friday night, without fail, Solo and Baz turn up. They drink, they dance, they wander off together...’ his words trail away, and he looks at Rey questioningly, as if to see if she’s following his drift. _

_ Rey swallows. Of course she’s following his drift. _

_ ‘Ben and Bazine,’ she says slowly. ‘Yes. Of course.’ _

_ So that’s why Ben didn’t want her to go to that party.  _

_ He didn’t want her to see him with Bazine. _

_ It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, she tells herself. It isn’t like she and Ben are anything more than friends. After all, Ben told her himself: Bazine was on the menu. Rey takes a deep breath, reminding herself that she has no right to feel anything, let alone hurt, or that deep, stabbing sense of betrayal. _

_ ‘I wonder why they didn’t go,’ she says softly, and watches as Poe shrugs. _

_ ‘Who knows?’ he replies. ‘It’s Solo. He’s always done his own thing. Besides, what does it matter? This is a small town with a whole heap of nothing going on for bored teenagers. There’ll always be another party.’ _

_ Rey nods, looking up to face Poe with a bright but all too false smile on her face. It would never do for anyone to know about her and Ben. _

_ To know about the stream, or the fact that for the last three nights, he’s climbed the old oak tree into her bedroom. _

_ So instead she smiles again, putting on her lightest, sweetest voice. _

_ ‘I am sorry I missed Friday with you, Poe.’ _

_ He winks at her once more. _

_ ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, his voice low and sultry. ‘I told you honey, there’s always another party.’ _

_ *** _

_ But the next party, as it turns out, is Ben’s. _

_ He’s seventeen, and his parents are throwing him a big bash in their backyard. The news is all over school, with girls gushing over invitations and talking about what dress to wear for the evening, or how they’ll fix their hair. Rose clutches her invitation with glee, showing it to Rey at lunch. _

_ ‘What should I wear?’ she asks excitedly. ‘Maybe you and I should book into that salon on Main Street... have our hair put in rollers and - ’ _

_ ‘I’m not invited,’ Rey cuts her off quickly. ‘I didn’t get an invitation.’ _

_ Rose’s face falls. ‘But you... you live next door to him,’ she says in confusion. _

_ ‘So?’ Rey asks. ‘It’s not like we’re friends or anything.’ _

_ The lie is all too easy on her lips, and she pushes down a memory of dancing in the stream the afternoon before, Ben’s eyes on her body and a pen in his hand. _

_ Rose frowns. ‘But everyone got an invitation. His parents invited the whole class.’ _

_ ‘Not me,’ Rey says bluntly. ‘They’ll never invite me.’ _

_ ‘But, surely if they...’ _

_ ‘Rose,’ Rey’s voice is clear. ‘I’m not invited.’ _

_ *** _

_ She’s in the stream later that day, moving from a plié into a relevé, trying to stay balanced on her toes for as long as she can against the current. Ben’s under his tree again, occasionally watching her but mostly scribbling in his notebook, and she turns to him at one point, her arms still in the air. _

_ ‘What should I get you for your birthday?’ she asks, and Ben looks up at her, his eyes sharp. _

_ ‘What do you mean?’ _

_ ‘I mean, it's your birthday next week. What shall I get you?’ _

_ He shakes his head, looking back down to his work. ‘You don’t need to get me anything.’ _

_ ‘I don’t need to, no,’ Rey agrees, stretching her calves once more. ‘I want to get you something, Ben. Want, not need.’ _

_ He looks up at her, a look on his face she cannot read. _

_ ‘There’s nothing I need,’ he tells her. _

_ ‘Want, not need,’ she says again with a small smile, rising to her toes once more. _

_ ‘There’s nothing I want then.’ _

_ ‘What nonsense,’ she says, stopping to cross her arms. ‘There’s always something that people want.’ _

_ ‘Fine. What do you want?’ He asks her, and Rey laughs. _

_ ‘I want for you to not change the subject.’ _

_ ‘I’m not changing the subject,’ Ben argues. ‘I’m merely asking what you want. You asked me, after all.’ _

_ ‘Yes, but it's not my birthday next week.’ _

_ He stops at that, putting his notebook down and staring at her. _

_ ‘You really want to give me something?’ _

_ She stops too, standing still in the water, and staring back at him. ‘Yes.’ _

_ ‘Something I want, and not need?’ _

_ ‘Yes,’ she says again. _

_ He nods slowly, as though thinking something over. ‘Come here,’ he finally says, after a moment's silence, and Rey frowns at him in confusion. _

_ ‘But, I - ’ she gestures to the stream, but Ben grins. _

_ ‘Come here,’ he says again. ‘The stream will still be there when we’re finished.’ _

_ Finished what? She wants to ask. But instead she bites on her lip, picking her way through the current and walking to Ben’s side.  _

_ ‘Ben, I - ’ she begins to speak, but he’s too quick for her, standing up and hauling her into his arms suddenly, so that her legs feel weak and her heart quickens. His face lowers to hers, his cheek brushing against her own, and his voice is a warm whisper in her ear. _

_ ‘Right,’ he says, his voice soft. ‘Dancing. You love it, right?’ _

_ She nods helplessly, squirming against him. _

_ ‘I’ve never danced,’ he confesses, still whispering in her ear, his body still pressed to hers. ‘Not really. Not with a girl who knows what she’s doing, anyway.’ _

_ ‘Ben,’ she whispers back, before she stops, completely at a loss for what to say.  _

_ Because there are no more words. _

_ Not right now. _

_ And so she nods, pulling back and looping an arm around his neck. ‘How do you want to dance?’ she asks, and it occurs to her that she’s still whispering, that even though they’re alone, in a forest, with only the birds and a stream for company, she’s still trying to keep this moment quiet, and just between them. _

_ ‘How do I want to dance?’ Ben asks, brushing a finger down her cheek. ‘With you. I want to dance with you.’ _

_ She nods again, taking his hand and leading him to the stream. He looks at her curiously and she smiles. _

_ ‘If we’re going to dance, we dance my way,’ she tells him.  _

_ He doesn't query her. Instead, he trustingly follows her into the water without a second glance, and when they’re knee deep, she turns back to him. She looks down as she finds his hand again, putting it around her waist, and loops her arm around his neck once more, pulling him close.  _

_ They begin to sway in the water, body pressed to body, cheek touching cheek, and Ben exhales, a long and low breath that warms her skin. He’s letting go of something, Rey realises. Something is being released, safe in this place, safe in her arms. _

_ She only wishes she knew what it was.  _

_ ‘Your heart is beating so fast,’ he says, interrupting her thoughts, and she nestles in closer to him. _

_ ‘Yours too,’ she whispers back. In the water, she feels brave, almost invincible, and she looks up at him to catch his eye. ‘Why is your heart beating so fast? Are you afraid of me, Ben?’  _

_ He shakes his head. ‘No. The only person I’ve ever been afraid of is myself.’ _

_ She nods at that, sadly and with understanding. _

_ ‘Are you afraid of me?’ he asks her, repeating her question back to her.  _

_ She sighs. ‘No.’ _

_ ‘Scared of yourself?’ he then asks, and she nods. _

_ ‘Yes,’ she swallows nervously. ‘Sometimes I feel like there’s something inside of me, deep and dangerous, and I don’t even know what it is, or why it's there, or what it means. But it's there all the same, and at any moment, it might wake, reaching up to consume me whole. I can’t explain it. I don’t understand it, Ben.’ _

_ Now he sighs, running a hand through her hair and continuing to sway with her in the water.  _

_ ‘You don’t need to understand it, maybe,’ he says softly. He hugs her to him gently. ‘I wish I could keep you here like this forever,’ he tells her. ‘Safe and hidden away from the world.’ _

_ ‘Yes,’ she agrees. ‘Me too.’ _

_ ‘Let’s make a pact,’ he whispers, his voice like caramel, rich and decadent, every word dripping down her spine. ‘Whenever I’m hurting, you help me, and when you’re hurting, I’ll help you. Nothing can get us so long as we have each other, Rey.’ _

_ ‘Nothing,’ she agrees, a little breathlessly. _

_ ‘Shall we shake on it?’ He asks, and Rey shakes her head. Instead, she reaches up and presses a kiss, soft and warm, to his lips. _

_ It’s a chaste kiss, brief and fleeting. It’s meant as comfort, companionship, and understanding. Rey wants him to know that she feels it too. She wants him to know that in his fears, he’s not alone. That she’ll help him in his hurts, again and again, for the rest of his life, or hers. _

_ It’s another lover's pact, she realises. Just another moment to keep secret between the two of them.  _

_ No one else will ever know, she tells herself. It’s just for them. _

_ When she pulls away, Ben looks at her with wonder in his eyes. Pressing his forehead to hers, holding her cheeks in the wide expanse of his palms, he stares at her reverently. _

_ ‘You understand,’ he says, almost in disbelief. ‘You understand me.’ _

_ ‘Ben,’ she whispers once more, still swaying with him in the water. ‘Happy birthday.’ _

_ *** _

Maz returned one afternoon, her car pulling into the drive with a loud bang. Rey emerged from her house, a dishcloth in her hands, shaking her head at Max’s beat up Chevrolet ruefully.

‘Are you ever going to let me fix up that thing?’ Rey asked.

Maz shook her head. ‘Mind your tongue. She’s a classic.’

Rey grinned, coming over to the car and running her hand along the door of the car. ‘She’s a piece of garbage, that’s what she is.’

‘Maybe so,’ Maz agreed. ‘But she’s my piece of garbage all the same. They don’t make them like this anymore,’ she added with a sigh.

‘Maybe not,’ Rey agreed, embracing Maz warmly. ‘What year is she? 1945? 46?’

‘1947,’ Maz said proudly. ‘That was a good year. A very good year.’

‘For you or the car?’ Rey asked slyly.

‘For me  _ in _ the car,’ Maz winked back. ‘Now, are you going to show your British manners by asking me inside for a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, of course. I have biscuits too.’

Maz shook her head. ‘Honestly, you’ve lived in the States for how many years now? And you still call cookies ‘biscuits’.’

‘Because that’s what they are, Maz.’

‘A hundred million people would disagree with you.’

‘A hundred million people would be wrong then.’

Maz grinned as Rey ushered her into the kitchen, pulling up a chair at her table. Rey busied herself in the kitchen, filling her kettle and setting it to boil. 

‘Speaking of wrong,’ Maz began lightly, ‘how’s the boy next door doing?’

Momentarily, Rey froze, one hand hovering over her biscuit tin. Glancing up, she saw Maz’s eyes narrow with interest, and she forced herself to carry on quickly.

‘His mother just died,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But other than that, I guess he’s fine.’

‘You guess or you know?’

‘I haven’t spoken to him in awhile,’ Rey confessed, pushing down a wave of sorrow. 

Maz’s eyes narrowed further. ‘What happened? You argued?’

‘Yes,’ Rey admitted.

‘What about?’

_ The stream,  _ Rey immediately thought.  _ He wants to destroy the stream. _

But instead, she forced herself to shrug, as though it were no matter at all. ‘He doesn’t want his half of New Republic,’ she said. ‘I offered to buy him out... and we fought.’

‘Hmm,’ Maz said, still watching Rey with suspicious eyes. 

Rey pretended not to see, making tea mindlessly, almost on automatic, while pulling together a plate of biscuits. When she looked up again, Maz’s eyes were still centred on her.

‘Just say it,’ Rey spat out, exasperated.

‘Say what, child?’

‘Whatever it is that’s making your forehead crease like that and your lips curl down,’ Rey said. ‘Just get it off your chest, why don’t you?’

Maz sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘I’m not thinking anything,’ she replied easily. ‘The only thing on my chest is a brazier which pinches in all the wrong places.’

Rey eyed her skeptically. ‘You came all this way for a chat and yet when you get here you don’t want to - ’

‘I didn’t come all this way for a chat, child.’

Rey stopped, her cup midway to her mouth. ‘What do you mean?’

Maz looked at her in confusion. ‘I’m not here on a social visit, Rey.’

Rey stared at her. ‘Wait... you didn’t come just to say hello... or check in with me... or...’

Maz shook her head. ‘I came for Leia’s funeral.’

‘Leia’s funeral?’ Rey asked, confused. ‘What do you mean, you came for Leia’s funeral?’

Maz inhaled sharply at that, realisation seeming to dawn on her face. ‘He didn’t tell you,’ she whispered, and something hot and unpleasant suddenly crawled down Rey’s spine. ‘He didn’t tell you.’

‘Tell me what?’ Rey asked, although she already knew. 

‘Leia’s funeral,’ Maz said simply. ‘It’s tomorrow, child.’

For a moment Rey stared at her, turning the words over and over in her mind.

_ Tomorrow. Leia’s funeral is tomorrow. _

‘But I’m... I’m giving a reading at the funeral... and...’ Rey stuttered, before she fell silent. ‘He doesn’t want me there.’

‘I’m sure there’s been some sort of error, child,’ Maz said, though her voice was tinged with disbelief. ‘He wouldn’t stoop so low as that... you and Leia were almost like mother and daughter...’

‘I’m not invited,’ Rey whispered, almost breathlessly.

‘I’ll go around and see him,’ Maz offered. ‘There must be a reason for this... this  _ mistake.’ _

But Rey shook her head, and when she spoke, her voice was icy and cold.

‘There’s no mistake,’ she told Maz bluntly. ‘He doesn’t want me there. This is his way of telling me.’

‘But he...’

‘Maz,’ Rey’s voice is clear. ‘I’m not invited.’

***

She picked a letter at random later, not looking out for any particular date or time, just finding an envelope that seemed to call to her.

There’s one at the back of the pile, faded and brown, Ben’s script a beautiful, looping cursive.

It started innocuously, full of random information about his day. Deep thoughts and scared wonders, all the workings of a sixteen-year-old boy laid bare for her, the girl he loved most.

No. That’s not right.

Not the girl he loved most. The  _ person  _ he loved most, Rey realised, with a dull thud of pain.

It’s sweet and touching, this letter, but halfway through the script broke off, replaced with harsh looking letters, angry and bold.

_ I’m going to kill him,  _ Ben wrote.  _ I’m going to kill him, for what he did to you. _

_ Stop me, Rey. You need to stop me. _

_ Please. _

_ I love you so much. _

  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  


__

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thursday is the update day for this story. I don’t know if I ever mentioned that.


	8. For Rey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this is late. It was VE Day on Friday, and I forgot about it. 
> 
> Next chapter will be this Thursday though. That E rating will come into force too.

_ Rey’s standing in the kitchen, helping herself to a snack, when one of her Grandfather’s nurses seems to notice her. Rey can feel the woman’s eyes going up and down the length of her, and she immediately stiffens, an apology on her lips. _

_ ‘I’m sorry,’ she blurts out. ‘I’ll put the apple back... I know I’m not supposed to eat between meals but I was just - ’ _

_ But the nurse shakes her head kindly, reaching over to the fruit bowl and handing Rey another apple. _

_ ‘How old are you, Rey?’ She asks, and Rey blinks in surprise. _

_ ‘Umm, fifteen.’ _

_ ‘You’re very thin,’ the nurse says, point-blank, and Rey shifts nervously on her feet. _

_ ‘I do a lot of dancing,’ she replies, looking down. _

_ ‘Hmm,’ the nurse stares at her. ‘Is that where you go after school everyday? To dance?’ _

_ Rey blushes, looking down at the floor. ‘Yes,’ she says. _

_ It isn’t quite a lie. Not really. Still, she doesn’t mention Ben, or the stream. But then again, maybe she doesn’t need to. Because the young nurse smiles at her gently once more, a thoughtful expression on her kind face. _

_ ‘That boy next door,’ she says easily. ‘He’s a good looking kid. Are you and he...?’ _

_ Rey looks up, panic flooding through her. If her Grandfather were to find out... _

_ ‘What makes you ask that?’ She asks quickly, and there must be a look of fear in her eyes, because the nurse shrugs, backtracking quickly. _

_ ‘Thought I saw something out the window once,’ the nurse says. ‘But it must have been something in my eye, I guess.’ _

_ Rey feels her cheeks flood with colour, and the nurse regards her curiously. _

_ ‘You got a Ma, Rey?’ _

_ ‘No.’ _

_ ‘Okay,’ the nurse carries on, ‘okay then.’ She leans against the countertop, still looking at Rey with her earnest blue eyes.  _

_ Rey clears her throat, before munching on her apple. ‘Thanks for the snack,’ she says, ‘please don’t... please... don’t tell my Grandfather I was helping myself though? He doesn’t like me to take things.’ _

_ ‘It’s an apple, Rey. Just an apple,’ Rey doesn’t need to look up to see the pity in the nurse’s eyes when she can hear it so obviously in her voice. ‘It’s here to be eaten, you know.’ _

_ ‘I’m not supposed to help myself,’ Rey says again, and the nurse sighs. _

_ ‘He’s a bit of a stickler for order, your Pop, hey?’ _

_ Pop. It’s a fun word, short and sweet, the consonants a pleasant exhalation on the lips.  _

_ Fun, sweet, pleasant. _

_ Words that in no way encapsulate her mean-spirited and heavy-fisted Grandfather. _

_ So, Rey makes no reply, and she feels the nurse’s eyes narrow on her slightly. _

_ ‘Tell me, Rey,’ the nurse starts, and Rey can feel how carefully she’s treading here, her words deliberately light. ‘Say I had seen something out of the window, say I didn’t have something in my eye... do you and I need to have a conversation?’ _

_ ‘A conversation?’ Rey asks, her words just as vague. ‘About what?’ _

_ The nurse sighs. ‘Look, you ain’t got no Ma, and I’ve seen too many girls your age get into trouble simply because nobody has sat them down and had a frank talk with them. So, I’m asking you if you and I need to have a frank talk.’ _

_ Rey swallows a bite of apple, the fruit momentarily an uncomfortable lump in her throat. _

_ ‘I know all about.... all about that,’ Rey says, not looking up. ‘I’ve had frank conversations before.’ _

_ ‘Well,’ the nurse nods. ‘Well, that’s fine then. Just know I’m here, Rey, in case you ever do need to have a talk with someone. Just in case I did see something out the window.’ _

_ ‘You didn’t though,’ Rey says, looking up, her face pleading. ‘Please... you didn’t see anything at all.’ _

_ The nurse gives her another kind smile. ‘Like I told you earlier, I guess it must have been something in my eye.’ _

_ *** _

_ The kind nurse’s name is Amilyn, and she seems to take more of an interest in Rey after their talk in the kitchen. At mealtimes, more food seems to fill her plate, and it’s no longer the thin, watery portions her Grandfather always prefers. Instead, there are hamburgers and casseroles and pot roasts, and Amilyn always joins her at the table, asking questions about her day. _

_ It’s odd to have an adult take actual interest in her, Rey finds. It’s as if someone finally noticed there was a living, breathing girl in the house, and a growing one at that, and decided to treat her accordingly. Not that Rey was complaining, anything but. It was just... unusual for her, and it took her time to grow accustomed to the overtures of friendship and company.  _

_ Rey, who’d never before had waves of hello when she walked in the door, always shrank back initially, waiting for a harsh word or a hard slap. Unused to having her breakfast laid out for her before school, or of coming home to find hot food on the table, she still stole snacks from the kitchen regularly. If Amilyn noticed, she never said anything, but Rey noticed the fruit bowl became better stocked afterwards, ripe pears, plums and apples falling onto the table. One night, she sat her desk, struggling with her English homework. Amilyn was there in a moment, reading through the text with her and explaining the finer details of 15th century England. _

_ ‘You have to understand,’ Amilyn explained patiently, ‘that Romeo and Juliet is mostly about passionate love, and about how that love triumphs over all other loyalties and values. Even after Romeo and Juliet are married, Juliet does not side with Romeo simply because they are married. No, she sides with him because she loves him. It reiterates the earlier theme of the story... that love keeps people together, and outside loyalties drive them apart.’ _

_ Rey swallowed. ‘Outside loyalties,’ she repeated, thinking instantly of Ben.  _

_ Amilyn rested her head against her palm, looking at Rey interestedly. ‘How much do you know about your Pop, Rey?’ _

_ The question seemingly came out of nowhere, and Rey shrugged, sitting back and putting her copy of Romeo and Juliet back in her bag.  _

_ ‘My grandfather? I don’t know much about him at all.’ _

_ Amilyn frowned. ‘Really? But he’s your pop. You live with him. You mean you don’t know anything about his business practices? About his financial situation? His history?’ _

_ Rey shook her head. ‘No.’ _

_ Amilyn frowned again. ‘Not a single thing?’ _

_ Rey looked down. ‘I know his rules. And what happens if I break them.’ _

_ Amilyn seemed to soften at that. ‘Oh, Rey - ’  _

_ ‘I have to go,’ Rey said, standing abruptly. _

_ Amilyn stood too. _

_ ‘You can talk to me, Rey. You know you can, right?’ _

_ ‘About my grandfather?’ Rey asked, looking for clarification. _

_ Amilyn shook her head. ‘About anything. Anything at all.’ _

_ Rey thought about Ben again. _

_ She was always thinking about Ben. _

_ But the look she gave Amilyn was clear with practised indifference. _

_ ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I’ve really got nothing to say.’ _

__ __ __ __ _ *** _

_ She tells Ben about Amilyn the next day, while they walk to the stream. It’s early morning, so early that the sky is still streaked by the hues of sunrise, a blanket of soft pinks and velvety peaches above and around them. Absently, Rey reaches her hand up to the clouds, furling and unfurling her fingers in the air as though she could stroke and swirl the colours together herself, before dropping her hand and shaking her head at her own foolishness.  _

_ She was nothing more than a child, trying to finger paint on a masterpiece of the universe. _

_ Ben must see her scowl, because he reaches over and takes her hand, squeezing her fingers gently. _

_ ‘You okay?’ _

_ He doesn’t release her fingers, Rey notes, even as she nods. _

_ ‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘Just thinking about Amilyn.’ _

_ ‘Amilyn?’ Ben queries, and his own brow furrows. ‘Who’s Amilyn?’ _

_ ‘One of my Grandfather’s nurses.’ _

_ ‘Is she being mean to you? Treating you badly?’ Ben asks instantly, and Rey smiles at his concern. _

_ ‘No,’ she says. ‘The opposite, in fact. She’s... nice to me.’ _

_ ‘Nice to you?’ _

_ ‘Yes. She acknowledges me. Talks to me.’ _

_ Ben swallows, as though something heavy is in his throat. ‘She spends twelve hours a day in your home, Rey. She’s supposed to acknowledge you. That’s not being nice... that’s just being human.’ _

_ Rey shakes her head. ‘It’s more than that... she makes sure I have enough to eat and that my ballet clothes are always clean and ready for dance class and that my homework is done and... and... and...’ she trails off, blushing suddenly. ‘I know she’s paid to do all of those things... it’s just that, she acts like she wants to do them too. She acts like she cares about me.’ _

_ Ben’s silent, clearly thinking, his fingers still laced through hers as he leads her to the stream. They make their way through the opening in the trees, picking their way through the wood until they come to their clearing.  _

_ Their clearing, Rey thinks.  _

_ Their stream. _

_ They fall into their usual pattern, Rey shucking her shoes and socks and wading into the river, while Ben sits under his tree, watching her. _

_ She stretches for a full ten minutes, keeping her poses even against the gentle pull of the water, feeling the water slide around her feet and calves. _

_ There are no outside loyalties in a river, she thinks suddenly. The stream never fights against itself. She lifts a leg tentatively, still staring at the water, before lowering it back into the stream. Temporarily she breaks the current, but only for a moment. The water merely weaves around her, carrying on down it's path. _

_ You can’t break a river, Rey tells herself. You can’t destroy a stream. _

_ ‘I care about you,’ Ben says suddenly, breaking her strange trail of thought. She looks up at him, somewhat dazed, and he frowns at her. ‘You don’t need to look so surprised... I thought it was obvious that I... look, it’s just that - ’ _

_ ‘No,’ she interrupts him, shaking her head frantically. ‘No, I know that you... I know that we’re friends.’ _

_ ‘Friends,’ Ben repeats, his voice blank. _

_ ‘Yes,’ Rey says, looking at him. ‘Friends.’ _

_ He scowls again for a moment, before turning away, back to his pen and the open notebook before him. Rey scowls too, dragging her gaze from him to the water at her feet. She tries to do some more stretching, tries to go through her forms and movements before she hears a loud noise and startles, looking up again.  _

_ Ben has thrown his notebook across the clearing, where it sits by the side of the stream, dangerously close to the water.  _

_ Rey exhales sharply. ‘Wait, I’ll get it - ’ _

_ ‘Leave it,’ Ben says, and his words are sharp. ‘It’s all terrible, anyway. Let the water have it.’ _

_ Rey frowns, but says nothing, biting on her lip. _

_ ‘I don’t like the sound of this Amilyn woman,’ Ben spits. ‘How long has she been in your home now, Rey? Months? And she’s only just noticed you exist? No,’ Ben shakes his head, ‘something’s not right here, something’s not right about this - ’ _

_ ‘She’s nice to me,’ Rey argues. ‘She’s just a nurse... my Grandfather hired her and - ’ _

_ ‘Exactly,’ Ben says vehemently. ‘Exactly, Rey. She’s just a nurse. Your Grandfather hired her. What if she sees you with me, and tells him?’ _

_ ‘She said she wouldn’t,’ Rey moves through the water, standing closer to him. ‘She promised she wouldn’t say anything.’ _

_ ‘You mean she knows?’ Ben asks quietly. _

_ ‘She saw us.’ _

_ ‘When?’ _

_ ‘I don’t know,’ she admits. ‘I don’t know.’ _

_ Ben is quiet for a moment, and Rey can almost see the thoughts running through his mind. ‘If she tells him - ’ he begins, and she sighs, stepping out of the stream and walking up to him. She sinks to her knees next to where he sits, and reaches for his hand. _

_ ‘What if she did tell him?’ she asks quietly. ‘He’s too sick to beat me... too sick to do anything about it...’ _

_ ‘He could throw you out,’ Ben says bluntly, looking down to where their hands are joined. ‘And then where would you go?’ _

_ ‘To you,’ she says instantly, ‘I’ll come to you.’ _

_ ‘Promise me that you will.’ _

_ She nods. _

_ It’s an easy promise to make. Another lover’s pact, here by their stream. _

_ She watches as his face softens. He reaches up, curling his fingers around her cheek. ‘I don’t know what I would do without you,’ he admits gently. ‘The thought of him hurting you... the thought of him sending you away...’ _

_ ‘He won’t,’ Rey promises. ‘He won’t send me away. He’s too old now. Too sick.’ _

_ Ben nods back, before he sighs, drawing his hand away from her cheek. A dart of loss goes through her, and she mourns the feel of his fingers on her skin. _

_ ‘It’s my birthday party tomorrow night,’ he says with a sigh, and Rey nods. _

_ ‘I know.’ _

_ ‘I wish you could come.’ _

_ She sighs, before sitting back a little. ‘Do you know?’ she asks him. ‘Do you know what happened? Between our families?’ _

_ He does know. She’s almost certain of it. She watches as he opens his mouth, before she sees him hesitate. ‘No,’ he finally says, the sound slow and lingering. ‘No, I don’t know.’ _

_ Outside loyalties, Rey thinks. Outside loyalties. _

_ She pulls back a little more, before standing and finding her shoes. _

_ ‘We better move,’ she says, not looking at him, ‘we don’t want to be late for school.’  _

_ ‘Let’s not go,’ Ben suggests. ‘Let’s just... stay here.’ _

_ ‘For the whole day?’ _

_ ‘Forever,’ he says. ‘Let’s just stay here forever.’ _

_ She smiles at him. ‘They’d find us eventually, you know.’ _

_ He nods sadly. ‘Yeah. But we already said that nothing could hurt us as long as we have each other, right?’ _

_ ‘Yes.’ _

_ ‘So let’s just... have each other,’ Ben says, and he stands, coming to Rey and pulling her into his arms. ‘Let’s just stay. Forever. Please.’ _

_ For a moment Rey rests her head against his shoulder, breathing in the smell of him. His fingers run into her hair, and she feels him exhale against her brow. _

_ ‘Ben,’ she whispers sadly. ‘We can’t.’ _

__ __ __ __ __ _ *** _

_ She rushes back to the stream after school, not even stopping at home to drop her bag or say hello to Amilyn. Ben won’t be there this evening, she knows. He has basketball after school on a Friday, and then he usually sees Bazine and his friends at the diner, before climbing into her bedroom, a bottle of something illicit in his hands. They’ll drink and laugh and talk and eventually end up in her bed, pressed against one another. Ben will stroke her hair as she falls asleep, his heartbeat a quiet rhythm in her ear, and she’ll curl into him, wanting the moment to last forever, while always knowing that it won’t.  _

_ Always knowing that in the morning, when she wakes, she will wake alone. _

_ She’s almost frantic, her legs breaking into a run across the field, fuelled by a single, all-encompassing thought: Ben’s notebook. _

_ He’d left it there this morning, by the water, and he might say it means nothing, might say whatever he scribbled so industriously onto the pages was terrible, but Rey knows better.  _

_ It means something to him, she’s certain of it. It means something to him, and therefore, something in it will be inherently good, and must be salvaged. _

_ But she’s too late.  _

_ When she reaches the stream, she sees the book has been licked at by the water’s edge, can see that the cover is damp, and the pages spoiled. _

_ ‘Oh,’ she exhales, the disappointment like a crushing wave within her. ‘Oh.’ _

_ She picks the book up, feeling the water seeping from it and running over her fingers. With a sigh, she tries to open it, but the pages are waterlogged, sticking together in a sodden mess. _

_ Only one thing remains, and for a moment Rey stares at it, her heart in her throat. _

_ A label on the cover, written in Ben’s beautiful cursive. _

_ ‘For Rey.’ _

_ Rey stops, staring at the book in her hand. She thinks for a moment, before carefully slipping the sodden book into her empty lunch bag, and starting the walk home. _

__ __ __ __ __ _ *** _

Rey banged on the door to Ben’s house, her temper high and her shackles up. She pounded again and again on the old wood, shouting at the top of her lungs, hardly caring at the noise she made.

The only neighbours they had to concern themselves about were each other, after all. And she’d never, in all her life, hated Ben as much as she hated him right now. He deserved to know that, she thought bitterly. He deserved to know how much she hated him, even if it meant nothing to him. Even if she meant nothing to him now, he deserved to know how much hurt he had caused her.

When he opened the door, Rey launched herself at him, scratching at his arms and face, cursing him and kicking him, calling him name after name, using every swear word she ever been taught, even the British ones, the ones he wouldn’t understand. She used them all and used them well, still lashing out at him, and she saw him scowl and frown at her all at once, holding out a hand and grabbing her by the arm.

‘Stop, Rey, stop this - ’

‘How could you?’ she spat, still trying to strike him, even though his strength was ten times her own. ‘How could you not tell me? How could you not  _ invite  _ me? How could you do this? How? How? How?’

She was half-crying, half-screaming, and Ben fought against her, struggling to contain her in her wrath.

‘Rey, stop - ’

‘You are such an arrogant jerk,’ she scratched at his face again, ‘how could you do this, Ben, how could you - ?’

He’d reached his limit with her rage. Hauling her into his house, he kicked the door shut behind him with his foot. His arm was like a vice around her as he manhandled her into the living room, and yet still she struggled, fighting against him, never giving in. She felt him push her against a wall, felt him wrap an arm around her neck. 

And still she fought.

She knew what was coming, of course. Even in her rage, she still knew. It was seamless between them, as it always was. One moment she was battering her arms against his chest, and the next those arms were wrapped around his waist. One moment her mouth was uttering obscenities in his direction, and the next it was fused to his in a kiss.

He kissed her. 

And Rey, even in her rage, even in her fury...

She kissed him back.

You can dam a river, Rey thinks, as Ben deepens their kiss. You can dam a stream.

But you can never break them.

  
  
  
  
  


__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this has a HEA and that I have a story plan I’m following. It might not seem like it, but I do.
> 
> Xx


	9. Depend on Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There is a flashback to child abuse (violent) against Rey. Please do not read if this is a trigger.
> 
> Okay, this chapter is told entirely from past Rey's perspective, and yes, this part of the fic is set in 1958 (which has been hinted at previously but not confirmed) while the future Ben and Rey is set in 1970. 
> 
> The next chapter is entirely told from future Rey's perspective.
> 
> I'm building up some big mysteries here and working off my outline and hoping I can pull all these strings together by the end.

_ Early on Saturday morning, Amilyn walks into Rey’s house with a smile on her face. Rey glances up at her from the breakfast table in confusion. _

_ ‘You don’t work weekends,’ she says worriedly. ‘What’s wrong?’ _

_ ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Amilyn replies easily. ‘And I’m not here to work. Come on, go and get your things. I’m taking you shopping.’ _

_ ‘Shopping?’ Rey asks. ‘Why? For what?’ _

_ Amilyn frowns at her. ‘For clothes, honey. For you.’ _

_ ‘But I have clothes.’ _

_ Rey feels Amilyn’s eyes run up and down the length of her, and she shifts awkwardly on her feet. Amilyn’s eyes are soft and understanding, and she pats Rey’s arm gently. _

_ ‘That old man upstairs still dresses you like it was... I don’t know... the Blitz or something.’ _

_ Instantly, Rey’s hand goes up to the collar of her dress. She blushes. ‘I know I look a little old fashioned - ’ _

_ ‘A little?’ Amilyn gives a small laugh. ‘Rey, it’s 1958. Girl’s aren’t wearing those kinds of dresses anymore. Don’t you want to look more like the other girls at school?’ _

_ Rey chews on her lip, uncertain. Of course, she’d thought about the other girls at school, and the way they looked. She’d admired their flared skirts and bright sweaters. She’d admired their clean blouses and puffed sleeves. She’d admired their sandals, or socks and saddle shoes. _

_ Yes, she’d looked, and yes, she’d admired. _

_ But she’d never before compared. _

_ Why would she? Her grandfather had always chosen her clothing for her. Always. She was his own living doll to dress, and he preferred to see her in the conservative clothing of fifteen years earlier, without any consideration for current fashion or her own tastes. There was no use in comparing herself to other girls, Rey had always thought. Other girls didn’t have a Grandfather who beat them if they showed the curve of their shoulders, or an inch too much of their legs.  _

_ Once - before they’d moved out here, when they were still in London - Rey remembered sitting at the old wood table in the dining room, eating a bowl of watery soup. She’d been nine, maybe ten, and she’d been swinging her legs under the table while she ate. There’d been a scratch in the woodwork, a deep gash sliced into the mahogany, and Rey wondered how it had got there, and why her normally pristine Grandfather hadn’t had it buffed out. And as she wondered she carried on swinging her legs, eating her thin soup, until she felt a shadow fall across her back. A shadow she knew all too well. _

_ ‘Why are your knees showing, Rey?’ her Grandfather’s voice had trembled with tightly leashed rage, and Rey instantly scrambled to her feet, pulling down her dress.  _

_ But it was too late. The damage had been done. _

_ It wasn’t her fault, she’d wanted to say. She’d grown out of all her clothes. But her Grandfather didn’t like excuses or listen to arguments, especially from a child, and a girl one at that. And he’d grabbed hold of her arm, pushing her face onto the table, next to the scratch that was so deeply embedded into the wood. _

_ The next day, three new, longer dresses appeared in her wardrobe, and Rey had been glad for them. _

_ They were long enough to cover the angry black bruises all over her legs. _

_ Rey didn’t even think about her clothes now. She simply went around in the plain dresses her Grandfather favoured, all high collared and long skirted, all in various shades of cream or white.  _

_ It didn’t matter what other girls wore, she always told herself. Other girls didn’t have her Grandfather, or white dresses covering black bruises. _

_ ‘Rey?’ Amilyn asks now, gently prodding her. ‘You okay?’ _

_ Rey glances up at her, bringing herself quickly back to the present. ‘My grandfather - ’ _

_ ‘Hasn’t been awake for three days now,’ Amilyn says gently. ‘He’s not going to last much longer, Rey. And he isn’t going to see you again, or what you’re wearing.’ _

_ Still, Rey bites on her lip, uncertain.  _

_ ‘Rey, come on honey. It’ll be fun. We can get some lunch together. Get your hair done.’ _

_ ‘I don’t have any money,’ Rey says bluntly. _

_ ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ Amilyn says. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ _

_ ‘But I couldn’t let you - ’ _

_ ‘Rey, I said don’t worry about it. Now come on, let’s get you out of that linen and into something a little more fun, okay?’ _

_ *** _

_ Rey lets Amilyn lead her around the few boutiques that line the main street of the small town in which they live. Rey stares at the rows and rows of brightly coloured skirts, white blouses and button-down dresses in confusion, but Amilyn seems to instinctively know what Rey needs. Rey watches as she casually throws things onto the counter where a kindly saleswoman nods her approval as she wraps their purchases. _

_ ‘Your Mom picking you up some things for the summer?’ she asks, and Rey’s cheeks flood with colour. _

_ ‘She’s not my mother,’ she says, looking down at the ground.  _

_ ‘Oh,’ the saleswoman flusters for a moment. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I thought - ’ _

_ ‘My mother is dead,’ Rey adds flatly, and the saleswoman’s face falls. _

_ It’s a fact Rey’s never admitted before. Not out loud, not to anyone, not even - if she’s honest- to herself. But there’s a liberation in speaking the truth, in finally admitting a long held and painful fact.  _

_ Her mother is dead. She’s not coming back. _

_ ‘You poor dear,’ the saleswoman clucks, and Rey feels Amilyn wrap an arm around her waist, squeezing her gently.  _

_ ‘Don’t feel too sorry for her,’ Amilyn smiles. ‘Look at these hazel eyes. Look at this waist. She does ballet, you know, and honestly, you’ve never seen a girl with such...’ _

_ Rey stands back, listening as Amilyn raves about Rey’s dancing, about her hair and how good her grades are at school. Is this what it’s like? She thinks. Is that what having a mother is like? _

_ ‘A ballet dancer, you say?’ The saleswoman asks. ‘Wait, wait there - ’ _

_ She disappears into a back room, and Rey shuffles awkwardly on her feet, while Amilyn gently brushes a hair from Rey’s face.  _

_ ‘You okay, Rey?’ _

_ Rey gestures to the piles and piles of clothing on the countertop. Mentally she’s been keeping account of the rising cost and feels a flare of worry build within her at what feels like an astronomical expense. ‘Do I really need all of this?’ _

_ Amilyn nods. ‘Yes. Honestly, all the money your mean-fisted Pop has and you’re here fretting about the cost of clothes that actually fit you and...’ Rey watches as Amilyn gives a frustrated sigh. ‘These are necessities, Rey. Necessities.’  _

_ Her words comfort Rey only slightly, the knot of worry within her still giving off waves of palpable worry. If her Grandfather were to find out about this... _

_ But before she can think any further about her Grandfather, the saleswoman returns, her hands covered by masses of rose pink, lace and organza spilling out over her arms. _

_ ‘Here it is!’ the saleswoman says happily, carefully draping the fabric over a nearby mannequin. She tugs and pulls on the organza, pinning the lace into place, and Rey bites on her lip, trying to hide an unfamiliar flare of want running through her. _

_ It’s a dress. A pink dress. Simple and elegant all at once, with delicately stitched lace running over the bodice, before flaring out in a soft organza skirt that looks like a cloud of silk. Rey can imagine how that skirt would feel, soft and fluttery against her legs. She can imagine how the lace would feel on her skin. _

_ She can imagine how Ben’s eyes would grow large, seeing her in a gown like this. _

_ She bites on her lip harder, fighting the thought down. _

_ ‘Oh, Rey,’ Amilyn exhales. ‘Will you look at that?’ _

_ The saleswoman nods happily. ‘Sixty-two years my store has been open, and this dress? Well, there’s quite the story behind it.’ _

_ ‘That’s vintage lace,’ Amilyn says knowledgeably, and the saleswoman nods.  _

_ ‘Vintage? Oh, yes. This dress was originally ordered by a young woman back in 1911, you know, back when my Grandmother was running the store. It was a day dress back then, with sleeves and a jacket. But the young lady never came to collect it, and so it sat in the stockroom, gathering dust.’ _

_ ‘What a shame,’ Amilyn intoned, fingering the lace bodice carefully. ‘Such pretty fabric to sit neglected.’ _

_ ‘That was what I always thought,’ the saleswoman nods. ‘But my Grandmother wouldn’t touch it. She was superstitious... thought this dress would bring bad luck to anyone who wore it.’ _

_ Amilyn and Rey looked up at that, and the saleswoman leaned forward, eager to tell her tale. _

_ ‘The young lady whose dress this was?’ she whispered conspiratorially, ‘was murdered you see. Just after she placed the order. That’s why my Grandmother and then my Mother after her would never touch it; just left it sitting in it's bag in the back room. Because she was killed, the poor lady.’ _

_ ‘Killed?’ Amilyn repeated. ‘Well, did you ever hear such a thing.’ _

_ ‘Yes... a sorry story it was, and quite the scandal here at the time,’ the saleswoman said with a sigh. ‘Well, I’m not one for superstition. As soon as my Mother gave me the keys to the store, I brought this dress out of storage and fixed it up like you see today. Took some time, it did. The organza is an addition, and I removed the sleeves. The only thing I didn’t touch was the jacket. It’s a work of art in its way, and I know good tailoring when I see it. It’s out back, still in the bag.’ _

_ ‘The dress is beautiful,’ Rey says, a little breathlessly, and the saleswoman nods.  _

_ ‘It is. And you... you have the figure for it. It’s a dancer’s dress really. Go on, take it dear. Try it on for us.’ _

_ ‘I can’t afford it,’ Rey says with effort, even though her body is screaming at her to reach for the dress. _

_ ‘We can work something out,’ Amilyn says instantly. ‘And it’s a party dress. You haven’t got one yet, Rey.’ _

_ ‘There you go,’ the saleswoman nods, ‘go and try it on for us, dear.’ _

_ But Rey shakes her head again. ‘It’s not a necessity,’ she says bleakly. ‘I don’t go to parties.’ _

_ The saleswoman frowns. ‘But isn’t there a big party at the Solo place tonight? Their boy... oh, I forget his name... isn’t he having a birthday? I’ve had several girls from the school buying new dresses for the occasion. I’m sure it's tonight.’ _

_ ‘It is,’ a voice suddenly says, and Rey turns to face a petite, elegant looking woman. _

_ Her hair is brown, tinged with grey, and her cheekbones are high and beautifully rounded. She’s beautiful and well-dressed and standing tall, and Rey feels Amilyn straighten next to her, while the saleswoman inhales sharply. _

_ ‘Why, Mrs. Solo, such a pleasure to see you,’ she says warmly. ‘It’s a lovely surprise, to be sure.’  _

_ Mrs. Solo.  _

_ Ben’s mother, Rey thinks quickly, her cheeks instantly flooding with colour. She looks down, even though she knows Mrs. Solo has already recognised her. _

_ ‘Hello Lydia, how are you?’ Mrs. Solo begins, and for a few minutes, she and the saleswoman converse politely. Rey doesn’t look up, even when she hears the room fall silent and feels Mrs. Solo’s eyes upon her downturned head. _

_ ‘You live next door to me, don’t you?’ she asks, although Rey keeps her eyes down. _

_ Amilyn prods her. ‘Rey,’ she says, ‘Leia is talking to you.’ _

_ Leia. _

_ Rey looks up at that, into Amilyn’s blue eyes. How does Amilyn know Mrs. Solo’s name? But Amilyn only prods her again, forcing her to look towards Ben’s mother. _

_ Leia stares at Rey, waiting for a response, and Rey nods. _

_ ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I live next door to you.’ _

_ ‘My, my,’ Leia says slowly, looking her up and down. ‘How old are you now, Rey?’ _

_ ‘Sixteen.’ _

_ ‘I have a boy around your age, you know,’ Leia says easily. ‘Ben. Do you know him?’ _

_ Rey keeps her face still. ‘No,’ she lies. _

_ For a long moment, Leia looks at her, before she gives a small smile. ‘He’s seventeen today. We’re having a birthday party for him.’ _

_ Rey nods. ‘I know. My friend Rose is going.’ _

_ ‘Well, if your friend Rose is going, you should come too,’ Leia says. _

_ For a moment, Rey looks at her. ‘But I - ’ _

_ ‘How is your Grandfather?’ Leia asks sharply, and Rey falters. _

_ ‘I, um,’ she looks to Amilyn helplessly, but Amilyn is surprisingly quiet, deferring to Leia entirely. ‘He’s unwell.’ _

_ ‘Really,’ Leia remarks, though she sounds completely unsurprised, and Rey sees a look pass between her and Amilyn. ‘Well, you should come to the party then. I’m sure Ben will be delighted to see you there.’ _

_ Rey stays silent on that point.  _

_ ‘What a beautiful dress,’ Leia suddenly says, reaching past Rey to stroke the organza skirt. ‘You should wear it tonight,’ she announces, looking back to Rey. _

_ But Rey shakes her head. ‘I can’t afford it.’ _

_ ‘It is an expensive piece,’ the saleswoman admits. ‘But I’m happy for you to pay in installments, if money is an issue - ’ _

_ ‘It’s not an issue,’ Leia says abruptly. ‘Lydia, put it on my account.’ _

_ The room falls quiet. Neither Amilyn or the saleswoman say a word, and it's left to Rey to speak up. _

_ ‘I can’t let you pay for a dress... not for me, Mrs. Solo.... I’m sorry, but - ’ _

_ But Leia gives her another smile. ‘I’ve more money than I know what to do with... Rey, isn’t it?’ _

_ Rey nods. _

_ ‘So let me buy you the dress, Rey.’ _

_ But Rey shakes her head again. ‘No, I couldn’t possibly - ’ _

_ Leia considers her. ‘Well, I can see you are an independent minded young lady, so tell you what? Let me buy the dress today, and at some point in the future, you can work off the cost for me.’ _

_ Rey pauses. ‘How?’ _

_ ‘Oh, I don’t know. Nothing too terrible, don’t worry. But I’m sure I’ll think of something, and Ben, well,’ Leia shrugs. ‘He’s not so interested in helping his Mom and Dad out these days.’ For a moment, Leia gives Rey a long look. ‘Maybe you could take his place.’  _

_ Rey licks her lips, and in her silence, the saleswoman clears her throat awkwardly. _

_ ‘Mrs. Solo, this dress - ’ she begins, and Leia looks over to her. _

_ ‘It’s quite alright, Lydia. I know what this dress is.’ _

_ Rey looks at both of them. ‘What do you mean?’ _

_ The saleswoman looks deeply uncomfortable. ‘Well, dear, this dress - the original dress, before I altered it, that is - well, it belonged to...’ _

_ ‘My mother,’ Leia finishes for her. ‘It was to be one of my mother’s gowns.’ _

_ Rey’s mouth drops open slightly, and she turns to the saleswoman. ‘But you said that she... that she was... that someone...’ _

_ Leia pats Rey on the shoulder lightly. ‘It’s fine, Rey. You can say it. My mother was murdered, yes.’ _

_ Rey looks at the dress again. The baby pink colour suddenly looks ashen, while the lace on the bodice is an elegant prison, the fine lines like bars across the silk.  _

_ ‘I can’t wear this,’ she says, retreating in sudden horror. _

_ But Leia nods at her kindly. ‘Yes, you can,’ she pauses, searching Rey’s face with a wistfulness that doesn’t suit the hard lines of her face. ‘You look so much like her. It’s so strange... that you can be the progeny of him, while looking like her...’ _

_ Him. She means her Grandfather, Rey realises. _

_ Leia’s face changes again, and she stands taller. ‘Lydia, put the dress on my account for Rey, and charge me for any alterations she needs.’ She nods at Rey just as brusquely. ‘I’ll see you at the party later, yes?’ _

_ Rey nods.  _

_ ‘Well, I have to say, this all feels a little like serendipity, doesn’t it?’ Leia says, her tone bright. _

_ But Rey knows a lie when she hears one. She sees Leia glance at Amilyn once more, and realises that running into Leia today wasn’t an accident. It was planned. There’s calculation here. A scheme of sorts. _

_ Amilyn helps her dress for the party later, doing up the buttons one by one. The dress hadn’t needed any alterations, in the end.  _

_ It fit Rey perfectly. _

_ ‘How long have you known Leia?’ Rey asks Amilyn suddenly, and Amilyn pauses. She glances at Rey in the mirror, and Rey tries to ignore the guilt that flashes through Amilyn’s blue eyes. _

_ ‘Years now,’ Amilyn admits quietly. _

_ ‘You work for her, yes?’ _

_ ‘I work for your Grandfather - ’ _

_ ‘You work for Leia,’ Rey says more firmly. ‘Please don’t lie to me.’ _

_ Amilyn does the last button up on Rey’s dress, smoothing the bodice over Rey’s hips. ‘Like a glove,’ she remarks. ‘Just like a glove.’ _

_ ‘What does Leia want from me?’ _

_ ‘I don’t know,’ Amilyn says quietly. ‘I didn’t ask.’ _

_ Rey nods. She can accept that.  _

_ ‘Amilyn?’ she asks, and Amilyn looks up. _

_ ‘Yes?’ _

_ ‘Who killed Leia’s mother?’ _

_ Amilyn’s face falls, and she looks away. ‘I don’t think that - ’ _

_ ‘Please,’ Rey pleads. ‘Everyone else seems to know everything and I’m always left out and... I’m tired of secrets. Please Amilyn. Who killed Leia’s mother?’ _

_ Amilyn sighs. ‘Well, it was never really... it was one of those crimes where nothing could be proved...’ _

_ ‘But?’ _

_ Amilyn sighs again. ‘But I’m told, by most accounts, that there was one person who everyone thinks was responsible.’ _

_ ‘Who?’ Rey demands. _

_ Amilyn shakes her head. ‘Look, Rey, I don’t want you getting upset before this party - ’ _

_ ‘Tell me.’ _

_ ‘Rey - ’ _

_ ‘Amilyn, tell me.’ _

_ Amilyn pauses. ‘Your Pop,’ she says. ‘It was him.’ _

_ Rey nods, her face unmoving, though her heart begins to race, and she crushes the organza skirt in her hands. _

_ ‘I’m going to give you a minute,’ Amilyn says. ‘You call out if you need me, okay honey?’ _

_ Rey nods, though she knows she won’t. Instead, she turns to the window, taking deep breaths. Below her, in the Solo garden, she can see lanterns being hung and tables being moved. She can hear the sounds of a band warming up.  _

_ She can see Ben, standing in the garden, staring up at her. _

_ For a moment, she holds his gaze. His face is soft, but his eyes are hard. No, not hard. They’re fierce. Fierce with admiration and need and jealousy all at once. She recognises the look in them, returned as they are in her own expression.  _

_ A hand creeping across her bare shoulder startles her, and breath, stale and fetid, briefly warms her bare skin. _

_ Warms, before her entire body chills with fear. _

_ She looks over her shoulder into the yellowed, sickly eyes of her Grandfather. _

_ ‘Miss Naberrie,’ he rasps. ‘Is he bothering you?’ _

_ Rey cannot speak. Her voice is caught in her throat in a silent scream. _

_ She watches as her Grandfather scowls down at Ben in the garden. ‘I don’t like the way young Skywalker looks at you,’ he says, his voice like sandpaper. ‘If the boy bothers you again, Miss Naberrie, do seek my assistance, yes?’ _

_ Rey is shaking now, shaking with fear and trepidation and she looks down to Ben again. _

_ But he’s not there.  _

_ ‘You’re shaking like a leaf, Miss Naberrie,’ her Grandfather continues, in an oddly respectful tone she’s never heard him use before. ‘But no wonder... that Skywalker boy - he takes such liberties with you...’ _

_ ‘Sheev!’ A voice cries out behind Rey, and she turns, gratitude filling her as she sees Amilyn, flanked by the other two of her Grandfather’s nurses, spilling into her room. _

_ Her Grandfather’s face changes, the present and past seeming to collide in his features, and he frowns at Rey in confusion. ‘Padme...’ _

_ But a nurse is already leading him from the room, and Rey sees a syringe being pulled from a bag. She turns away frantically, back to the window.  _

_ She glances outside, looking down to where Ben clings to the upper branches of the old oak tree.  _

_ He climbed the tree. He climbed the tree to get to her. _

_ She smiles down at him, trying to reassure him. _

_ ‘Rey - ’ he begins, but she raises a finger to her lips.  _

_ Amilyn is still behind her. _

_ ‘Are you okay?’ Amilyn asks worriedly. _

_ ‘Yes,’ Rey says. ‘I’m fine. He thought I was...’ _

_ Amilyn nods. _

_ Rey stares at her. ‘Was Miss Naberrie a dancer too?’ _

_ ‘Rey...’ _

_ ‘I’m wearing her dress,’ Rey says, her voice low. ‘I look like her and I’m wearing her dress.’ _

_ ‘Are you okay?’ Amilyn asks again, her forehead creased with worry, but Rey shakes her head.  _

_ ‘I have a party to go to.’ _

_ She turns back to the window. On the floor, just below the sill, is a crumpled ball of paper. Rey drops to her knees, unravelling the note. _

_ It’s from Ben. _

_ If he hurts you, I’ll kill him, Rey reads.  _

_ If anyone hurts you, I’ll kill them. _

_ You can always depend on me.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The big question here is what happened at the stream? IN EVERY SINGLE TIMELINE


	10. Sugar Rat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forget the chapter count. It’s going to go up and this will be novel length, no doubt about it. I’m going full mystery suspense on this one, with twists and turns all the way, and I need the extra words. I’m sorry for those wanting a shorter read. 
> 
> I’ve tightly plotted this out, and I’ve dropped some big hints in this chapter as to what happened in the past and what happens in the future. 
> 
> A note: I normally research my fics so that they’re accurate in most respects. There was a Brixton orphanage, but because of COVID-19, I haven’t been able to visit the national library in London to get the exact details right for the post war period. Once I’m able, I’ll correct that section so it’s historically accurate.
> 
> Much love to you all, hope everyone is staying safe and well. 
> 
> S.x

_ December, 1945 _

He’d always considered himself to be a man of refined taste.

Books, wine, art, women...

Oh yes, women. Especially women. Where they were concerned, he was a man of the  _ most _ refined taste.

As his car rolled to a stop outside the Brixton Orphanage for Girls, he stared at the depressing grey building with disdain. The building still bore the tell-tale signs of heavy bombing during the war, with shrapnel marks sprinkled across the stone facade and the windows papered over with old broadsheets. The roof had been patched with cheap tiles and the door was old, hanging slightly off its hinge.  _ How apt,  _ he thought with sneer. _ A crooked entrance to a world of crooks, bastards and the poor _ . 

There was no money in this part of London, he knew. It was nothing more than a breeding ground for rats, both human and rodent. They were necessary of course, for the mundane and rough tasks the elite had no desire to do themselves, but still... rats all the same. 

He had no business being in this part of London. No business at all. But then, he wasn’t here on business. Not at all.

No. This visit was entirely personal.

He was shown into a bleak, run-down sort of office. There was a picture of Jesus on one wall and the King on the other, and he wanted to laugh at the sheer audacity of it. The people of South London had sacrificed their men and their homes and their children in the name of God, King and country and where had it got them? Where was the pleasure in victory when your home was rubble, your menfolk dead and your children displaced? During the Blitz, the King had stayed in his castle and God had stayed in his heaven and the people of London had been left to fend for themselves. 

Their continued reverence for the deities who ruled them was pathetic and misplaced, he decided. 

But then, what else could one expect from a rat?

A woman came through, sitting at the desk with an air of dejected acceptance which boded well for him. He gave her his most beatific smile, and spoke the words which he knew would win his way into her favour.  _ All I have left. Just a lonely old man. I can give her a good home. Family is important. I owe it to her father. _

‘And you say her parents are dead?’ The woman asked, peering at a sheet of paper in her hand.

‘My son was killed in France,’ he replied with a sigh. ‘And his wife died of sickness but a few years later. My granddaughter was taken in by the state after that. I’ve been searching for her for years now.’

‘How old would she be?’

‘How old?’ He repeated her question slowly. ‘How old?’

‘Your granddaughter,’ the woman said, staring at him. ‘Do you know when she was born? What year? What month?’

He frowned, only slightly, but enough to make the woman lean forward.

‘A great many children were displaced during the war, Sir. It is my Christian duty to see that they are reunited with their families or found good homes to live in. You say you are searching for your granddaughter, and I sympathise with your situation... but I cannot just give you one of my girls without a little more information. I have their best interests at heart.’

‘Of course, of course,’ he said.

He hadn’t expected this. He’d thought they might be so glad to unload one of their burdens they would simply hand him a girl and be done with it. 

‘How old?’ The woman said again, her eyes narrowed slightly, and he felt a bead of sweat trickle down his neck.

_ How old was the boy? _ He thought frantically.  _ Four? Five? _

‘I’m afraid I do not have her exact date of birth,’ he said smoothly. ‘Her father and I were, sadly, estranged on his death. But I think she is around four, or thereabouts.’

‘Four,’ the woman said with a sigh. ‘And features? Do you have a photograph?’

‘No photograph,’ he replied evenly. ‘Like I said, her parents and I were estranged. I was simply told she was brought into this establishment on their demise.’

The woman sighed again. ‘At present I have sixty two girls in this home. If we could narrow the details down, even just a little...’

‘I’m told she takes for her mother,’ he offered suddenly, and he saw the woman’s features brighten.

‘Could you describe her for me?’

He closed his eyes, dragging forth a memory. ‘Brown hair, the colour of the chestnut. Brown eyes, and true brown, without even a fleck of hazel in them. High cheekbones... and full lips. Very full lips. She was a beauty. A natural beauty, no doubt about it.’

Momentarily his voice shook, and it hurt to breathe. Grappling for clarity, he pushed the image in his mind away. When he opened his eyes again, the woman was staring at him coolly. 

‘And you are quite certain, sir, that your granddaughter was brought into this orphanage? There are a great many other orphanages in the area...’

He held back a shudder. He’d chosen this orphanage after careful consideration of the area. The public records office had suffered severe damage during the Blitz, and many children had fallen through the cracks since. He didn’t want a trail. He didn’t want evidence. 

He just wanted a girl.

‘I am quite certain,’ he said clearly. ‘My granddaughter is here, and I wish to claim her.’

For another moment the woman stared at him. 

She didn’t believe him, he realised. She was going to send him away, empty-handed, his plans gone awry. 

It was inconceivable.

‘I will, of course, make a hefty donation to your establishment,’ he said abruptly. He leaned forward, his eyes looking directly into hers. ‘There must be a great many other young girls in your district who could do with a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. I have the means for you to help them. All I want, in exchange, is one girl.’

‘Not any girl. Your granddaughter,’ the woman corrected him. She sat back, still staring at him. ‘I have heard of men who take great...’ she paused. ‘Great  _ delight  _ in young girls. Are you one of those men, sir? Will this child come to harm in your keep?’

He sat back, revulsion washing over him.

‘Madam,’ he said. ‘You insult me. Both my body and my heart remain true to the love of my youth.’ It was his first moment of honesty in this wretched place, and his voice rippled with affront.

The woman shrugged. ‘I take the well-being of my girls seriously. It had to be asked.’

‘All I intend for my granddaughter is the very best.’

The woman nodded. ‘She will be schooled?’

‘Ballet, deportment, elocution,’ he confirmed. ‘All that a young lady needs to get about in society. I have great plans for this child, you see. Great plans indeed.’

‘Hmm,’ the woman stared at him for another moment, before flipping back to the paper in her hand. ‘Well, I have three girls who match the description of your granddaughter, only two who could be the right age though -’ 

‘Have them all brought through. I should like to see the full selection.’

‘Selection?’ The woman queried. ‘These are children, sir, of the British Empire. They are not to be chosen like sugar mice in a sweetshop.’

‘Bring them through,’ he ordered again, while his mind smiled at her words.  _ Sugar mice?  _ He thought. He was not choosing a mouse. He was choosing a rat. A rat he could train to take the right bait of cheese _.  _ A rat in a trap of his own making.

He was a man of great taste, he reminded himself later, while staring at three little girls shaking in the corner. Wine, art, books, and women. And what was a girl but a young woman, after all?

‘That one,’ he said, pointing to the smallest and dirtiest of the three, her eyes round as saucers, her hair a tattered mess. The woman frowned again.

‘I only brought that one through because she matched the physical description you gave me. Age wise, she is a little on the young side... only three, this girl, and - ’

‘That one,’ he said again, more firmly, his eyes locked on the child. ‘I want her.’

‘I tell you, she cannot be your grandchild,’ the woman said. ‘Her mother was a known drunkard and her father was - ’

‘You offered her,’ he stood taller. ‘So I will take her.’

‘Her eyes are green, not brown - ’

‘She’ll do,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Have her prepared for me.’

It was like choosing gloves at Harrods, he reflected. All you needed was a basic fit. Eventually, they would slacken and shape to the size of your hands. 

The woman glared at him. ‘I do not think - ’

‘Another donation, I think, to the church of your choice in this diocese,’ he threw her a bone, waiting for her to bite. ‘In exchange for this child. I understand the local church was badly damaged during the war. Well, faith is one thing... but faith with a little money? Think of all the good that could be done. And all for one small child whose life I plan to better.’

The woman’s mouth wavered, but she remained silent. He felt victory run through his blood. Rats always took the right kind of bait, after all. 

‘Does she have a name?’ He asked the woman. ‘What does she respond to?’

The woman glanced at the girl in the corner. ‘Her surname is Rey, while her Christian name - ’

‘Rey will do,’ he said. ‘I have no use for the other.’ 

She’s delivered to his home later, in a red coat that is ten times too big for her, her pathetic belongings wrapped in a cloth bag. The nurse he’d hired that afternoon is already standing ready in her starched white uniform, a bath having been drawn for the child upstairs. He stared at her, examining and appraising his newest purchase. 

Because she was a purchase, after all, no mistake about it. He’d made two sizeable but not outrageous donations to the orphanage today, buying this little girl and the silence of the woman who’d handed her over. He’d taken all her paperwork too, what little of it there was, just to be on the safe side. So far as the Brixton Orphanage for Girls was concerned, the little girl surnamed Rey had never come to them, never stepped foot through their door. 

She was his now. All his.

A rat in a trap for him.

But the cheese in the trap for another.

‘So, Rey,’ he said, bending down and looking deep into her little green eyes. He made a mental note to have her properly dressed and cleaned as soon as could be arranged. White and cream, he decided. She’d always looked best in white and cream, and this little girl, chosen for her similarities, would be no different. ‘My little sugar-rat... how do you feel knowing that today is the first day in our quest to bring down a dynasty, hmm? We shall do great things together, you and I. Great things.’

She was a good choice, he decided with pleasure.

But then, why wouldn’t she be?

He was a man of refined taste, after all. The most refined tastes indeed.

***

_ 1958 _

He sits up in bed, a fog on his mind. He hurts and his body is weary. It takes great effort, but he comes to a stand, walking slowly to the window.  _ Why do I hurt so much?  _ He wonders.  _ Why do my legs feel so leaden? Why does my chest ache so? _

He walks to his window, letting the evening breeze wash over him. 

He sees her in the distance. He knows her silhouette anywhere, knows that turn of her neck, the shape of her back. She’s wearing pink tonight. It’s a new dress, he thinks. It must be the one she was talking about ordering. It looks good on her. But then, everything looks good on her.

She’s standing in the garden next door, looking scared, almost timid. She’s nervous, he realises.  _ Why is she nervous? Who frightens her? _ Her bravery and courage are two of the things of the things he loves best about her, although he can never really decide. He loves her for who she is, but he also loves her for how she looks too. Beautiful eyes, beautiful hair, beautiful smile. Everything about her is beautiful. Everything about her is wonderful.

_ Why is she so scared?  _ He thinks again, frowning with his worry.  _ Who frightens her? _

He can hear music in the distance, playing lightly, and he scowls. It’s a party, he realises. Someone is having a party. She shouldn’t be going to a party, he decides. She’s still so weak. Still unwell. She should be here with him, resting. 

He’s about to call out to her, about to hurry her home, when he sees him.

Him.

A boy. He’s tall and gangly, his hair dark. He steps towards her, pulling one of her hands into his own. 

He feels his heart constrict with jealous anger. Feels fury build in his blood. No one touches her but him, after all. She belongs to him. She’s all his.

The boy speaks with her, and she... she’s looking up at him with light in her eyes.  _ No!  _ He wants to scream. No. That look is for him, and him alone. Not for this boy. Not for him.

She belongs to him.

His fists clench, even over the dull ache in his fingers. She and the boy, they’re talking now, whispering pretty words into each other's ears, no doubt. 

_ They are in love,  _ he thinks in agony. Anyone who saw them, who saw the light in her eyes and the warmth in his, would know it to be true. How can this have happened? How can there be yet another man to destroy? Another man to dispense with?

He moves from the window towards the door, when a woman walks into the room.

‘What are you doing out of bed?’ She chides instantly. ‘You know you need your rest.’

She’s oddly familiar, this woman. Something about her eyes, the shape and colour, call to him and he frowns at her, trying to place who she is.

‘I was just... the boy...’ he mutters, gesturing out the window.

The woman glances out towards the garden, before looking at him with an expression of patient bewilderment.

‘That’s Ben,’ she says. ‘You remember Ben, surely?’

‘But she has his hand...’

‘Who does?’ The woman asks sharply. She glances out again, before staring at him. ‘There’s no one else there,’ she says patiently. ‘It’s just Ben. He’s probably taking a quiet moment before the party tonight. Remember there’s a party tonight?’

‘A party?’ He echoes, his voice distant.  _ What party? For who? _

‘It’s Ben’s birthday,’ the woman explains patiently.

‘But she was there...’

‘Who was?’

‘She was!’ He snaps, his voice rising. ‘She was in the garden! Our garden!’

A look of worry crosses the woman’s face, and she walks towards him slowly.

‘Let’s get you back into bed, shall we? Maybe some more of your medicine, hmm?’

But he doesn’t want more medicine. The medicine clears the pain and the fog and makes him remember that... oh God...

‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ He sobs suddenly. ‘She’s dead. My lovely girl. Dead. Her dress... all blood. Her hand in the water. Dead.’

‘You need that medicine,’ the woman says fretfully. ‘Let me get it.. let me get...’

‘She’s dead,’ he sobs again. ‘I didn’t mean to... I didn’t mean to do it...’

‘Let me get those pills. Stay there, Dad. Stay there. Luke is here... I’ll get him. Stay there, Dad. Just stay there.’

_ Dad?  _ He thinks. Dad? But that would make her... no... it can’t be. This woman is so old... so lined... she can’t be one of the babies. She can’t be.

He goes to look at her again, to look into her eyes for that familiarity he felt earlier, but she’s already gone, shouting down the hall, and then the boy is there, in his room, staring at him.

The boy.

_ Him. _

‘You’re upsetting Mom again,’ the boy says, and his mind searches for a memory, of who this boy is, and of who his Mom might be.

The boy, he thinks darkly. The one who held her hand.

‘I saw you,’ he seethes quietly. ‘I saw you holding her hand.’

The boy blanches slightly, guilt crossing his features.

‘But I love her,’ the boy says simply, and he feels that old fury fill him.

‘She’s not for you,’ he hisses. ‘Stay away from her.’

‘I don’t care who she is, or who her family are,’ the boy says, standing taller. ‘I love her.’

His fists clench, pain in his fingers. ‘Then you are my enemy.’

The boy pales. ‘Grandfather - ’

_ Grandfather?  _ He thinks.  _ What is he talking about? _

But the woman is back now, and shooing the boy from the room. She’s talking now, a man by her side, all shaggy beard and blue eyes and he’s handing him a handful of pills and -

‘He’s getting worse,’ the woman is fretting. ‘Always wandering in the past... he talks about the things he’s done and I can’t manage him like I used to...’

‘Maybe a home,’ the shaggy-bearded man suggests, smiling at him gently. ‘It’s not like we have a duty towards him. He shouldn’t be our responsibility.’

‘He’s blood kin, if nothing else,’ the woman is replying firmly. ‘Besides... the things he says... if anyone else were to find out...’

‘No one will find out,’ the bearded man says. ‘It’s been too long now. The truth is as buried in time as he is.’

He gestures to him and he stares back, wondering who he is, and what he talks of.

‘Next door...’ the woman says quietly. ‘The girl...’

_ The girl,  _ he thinks. The girl in the pink dress. 

Padme, he smiles to himself. My Padme.

‘Tell Ben to stay away from her,’ the bearded man is saying. ‘I have a bad feeling about her. About the family in general.’

‘She’s harmless,’ the woman replies. ‘Besides, Ben has that girlfriend... he isn’t interested in the girl next door.’

‘Hmm,’ the bearded man seems to think. ‘I’ll tell him to stay away, just in case. Would to God the old man just die... then half our troubles would be over, at least.’

_ Half?  _ He thinks.  _ Who is the other half of their problem? _

‘He’s dying anyway. Amilyn’s there... she says it can’t be long.’

‘And then the girl?’

‘I’ll take her in hand, don’t worry. I’ll make sure she isn’t a problem,’ the woman’s voice is firm. Almost cold.

_ The girl in pink. My girl,  _ he thinks again.  _ They’re going to hurt her. _

He wanders to the window. She’s in the garden, her pink dress glowing in the afternoon sun.

Perfection, he smiles. She’s perfection.

A shadow from the house next door catches his eye, and he turns to it. 

At the window, a man stands. He’s staring at him, his eyes narrowed. 

Panic builds in his heart.  _ Padme,  _ he thinks.  _ He’s going to hurt Padme.  _

He knows that face. Knows that cold look of horror. 

He looks to Padme again, and the boy is back. He’s stroking her cheek, taking liberties with her, acting like she belongs to him. But she doesn’t belong to that boy. She belongs to him. Not the boy.

_ He has to go.  _

The thought is clear in his mind and instantly calming.

Of course. The boy has to go, and then Padme will be safe. Safe and his once more.

He sits in the chair and closes his eyes.

_ He has to go. _

***

He opened his eyes when the nurse came into the room. The other nurse, the traitorous one, was nowhere to be seen. 

The nurse curtsied, and he nodded back to her.

‘Do things progress according to my plan?’

‘Yes. The girl is at the party. The boy is with her.’

‘Disobedient little rat,’ he muttered. ‘So predictably troublesome.’

‘I can bring her back - ’

But he shook his hand. ‘Oh, no. Let her make hay while the sun shines. I meant to torture the grandfather with her presence... but it appears I shall torture the grandson too. It is a delightful addition to my plan. I am very pleased by this development.’

When the nurse left, he went to his bed, lying prostrate like the sick man they all believed him to be.

His revenge was so close that he could almost feel it in his bones. So close. The satisfaction that flowed through him was like manna, honey sweet to the lips. And all thanks to his little sugar rat. 

She’d been a good choice, he congratulated himself. The best choice indeed.

He was a man of refined taste, and his little sugar rat had been of great service to him.

It was almost a shame to do to her what must be done next. 

But he shrugged the thought away easily.

He had a dynasty to destroy, after all.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We will get to what happened at the stream eventually, I promise. X


	11. Puppets on a String

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, still writing this story: Alright brain, so what do the patient readers of this fic know?
> 
> My brain: That something happened at the stream.
> 
> Me: Great. So, with this chapter, we’ll clear all that up for them?
> 
> My brain: That’s a great idea, but how about first we...
> 
> *see below chapter*
> 
> Me: The readers won’t have a clue what’s going on.
> 
> My brain: But the twists! The turns! THE ANGST.
> 
> I’m so sorry. We’re getting there. Maybe wait for it all to finish and read it from the beginning in one sitting.

For Rey, kissing Ben Solo was always life-altering, throwing her world wonderfully and gloriously off its axis. The moment his lips touched hers, she would slip from a life of black and white into an experience of glorious technicolour. Kissing him reminded her of a rainbow... the softness of his lips was all peach, sweet to lick and sweet to taste. His hand in her hair, gently tilting her head back, was a dark shade of blue, all power and strength and hidden shadows. The heat of his mouth was vibrant red, warm, salty and drawing forth passion from within her. Yes, kissing Ben Solo was like being touched by all the colours of the universe at once; colours that were normally a veritable mess, nothing more than the lingering remains of an eons old explosion of shade and light, but under his wonderful touch, all suddenly and completely making sense. Kissing Ben was colour and starlight and madness and permanence all at once, and Rey fell into it as she always did and forever would: wholeheartedly, unreservedly and without shame. 

Until she opened her eyes and met his. And then, the veil of technicolour slipped away, and she felt the black and white monochrome of the present crawl back over her and into the crevices of her heart. This was Ben. _ Ben _ . Ben, who was angry with her, and she with him. Ben, who hadn’t invited her to Leia’s funeral. 

Ben, who was engaged to someone else.

With an anguished cry, Rey pulled away. And she saw anguish cross through Ben’s eyes as he let her. 

She was always pulling away, after all. And he was always letting her. That was the truth between them. An unpleasant truth, in stark black and white.

The rainbow receded, and they were left in the grey, staring at one another.

‘That... that won’t solve anything,’ Rey said, her voice wavering, running a hand through her hair. She was shaking, tremors running through her body, and concern flickered in Ben’s eyes. He reached towards her, but she turned away, walking from where he stood into the kitchen she knew so well.

Behind her, she heard Ben sigh.

‘I’m making tea,’ Rey told him, ‘Do you...?’

Ben walked into the kitchen, standing by the table and resting his head in his hands on the countertop. ‘No,’ he exhaled. ‘No, I don’t want a fucking cup of tea. I want you to talk to me.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘Yes, you do,’ answered Ben patiently. ‘You wouldn’t have come over here like a screaming banshee if you hadn’t.’

‘You deserved it,’ Rey spat at him, violently swirling milk into a cup. ‘You... you  _ didn’t invite me,  _ Ben. You didn’t invite me. She wanted me there... she wanted me to give a reading... and I... I...’ unexpectedly, Rey’s words caught in her throat and she struggled for breath. In a second, Ben was beside her, rubbing her back and pulling her hand from the cup she was painfully clutching.

‘Breathe,’ he ordered. ‘Rey, please just take some deep breaths, okay?’

She looked up at him, tears stinging her eyes. Under his watchful gaze, she forced herself to draw air into her burning lungs, forced herself to slow her rapidly beating heart.

‘I learned it all,’ she told him helplessly. ‘I learned the whole thing, word for word, off by heart...’

‘What did you learn?’ Ben asked, his voice soft.

Rey closed her eyes.  _ ‘Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes. I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long...’ _

Tears once again wracked her body, grief striking her hard. Leia was gone. Leia was dead. And Ben was all that remained of her. Ben, who was nearly a stranger to her now.

How could someone be so far away and yet so close all at once? Rey wondered, looking up at him through her tears. Did she know this man at all? She peered at him, looking at the eyes whose colour she could recall as clearly as her own, at the lips she’d once kissed, at the cheeks she’d once caressed. 

He was a stranger to her, she decided. 

She didn’t know him at all.

A fresh wave of tears ran through her, running down her cheeks so that she had to brush them away with her hand. Next to her, Ben watched as she cried.

‘Rey -’ he began, but she shook her head, rubbing her eyes harshly before holding her head in her hands.

‘I’m okay, I’m -’

‘ _ Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms, my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer and these the last verses that I write for her, _ ’ Ben recited suddenly, his voice soft, his head held low. 

Rey looked up at him, surprise written in her eyes. ‘Ben,’ she whispered. ‘Ben, you...’ 

She stopped, uncertain of what to say. Ben sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets and stepping away from her.

‘I loved her too, Rey,’ he told her, his voice still soft but underlined with a hidden sharpness, like morning dew on a plane of glass. ‘I loved her. I really did. And I know you loved her too. But Rey, you aren’t going to her funeral.’ He drew himself up to full height, resolve seeming to cross his face. ‘And neither am I.’

For a moment she stared at him and he stared back unafraid. 

‘You... you aren’t going?’ she stumbled on the question, her palms clammy, her heart picking up tempo once more.

‘No.  _ We  _ aren’t going, Rey. Neither of us.’

‘But she... you and I... we...’

‘It’s over,’ Ben said calmly, leaning against the counter and pushing her tea back towards her. ‘All of it. It ends now.’

With trembling fingers, Rey picked up the cup, sipping at the tea though her stomach felt queasy.

‘It ended twelve years ago,’ she told him shakily. ‘It ended the night he died. The night they died.’

‘No,’ Ben shook his head. Something in his eyes grew dark, and she knew memory was striking him in that moment as much as it was striking her. 

_ The stream. Ben’s weight next to hers, scratches on her back and bruises on her hips. Ben’s lips, apologetic and healing, tracing a path on her shoulders. Words between them, loving and gentle and carried away on the wind. The water at their feet, running back to the sea. Promises falling between them, talk of Europe, of running away, of never coming back. _

_ In that moment they are one and in that moment they are free. _

_ And then, breaking the sanctity of their vows, a bloodcurdling scream. It cuts into them and over them and they sit up, guilt on their faces. _

‘It should have ended then,’ Ben carried on, his voice hard. ‘But it didn’t. It didn’t.’

‘We were just stupid kids, we didn’t know anything- ’

‘No!’ Ben’s hand slammed down onto the countertop and there was a bleak desperation in his eyes. ‘Look at us, Rey! Look at us. Look at what they did to us.’

‘They didn’t do anything to us,’ Rey argued, but she knew her voice was weak. ‘We made our own choices. We forged our own paths, we...’ her words trailed away helplessly. ‘We’re... we’re where we are meant to be, Ben...’

He stared at her, his eyes burning into her skin. It was a heat unlike any other she’d ever felt. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Stop lying to yourself, Rey. We didn’t choose this. We didn’t choose any of it.  _ They  _ made us. They’re the ones who made us lie and they’re the ones who made us choose and they’re the ones who used us like puppets on a string and now  _ it ends here. _ ’ Ben’s face shook with restrained fury. ‘I’m cutting the strings, Rey. For both of us. We won’t be anyone’s puppets any longer. The past is in the past and we’re letting it go. Killing it, if we have to.’

Rey felt herself blanch at his words and Ben’s face softened. He reached towards her, stroking a hand down her arm gently.

‘Anyone and everyone who knew is gone now,’ he told her. ‘It’s just us. We’re all that’s left of them all. The secrets, the lies, the games... they died with Leia. They’ll be buried with her, just as they’re buried with Luke, with your Grandfather and mine. But we aren’t going to go to that funeral and mourn them, Rey. We’re letting it all go, you and me.’

Rey looked down to where Ben’s hand touched her arm. Looked down to where his skin met hers and made them one. 

‘But there’s still one secret left, isn’t there?’ she whispered, and saw a flare of panic run through Ben’s eyes.

‘Rey, no -’

‘What happens next, Ben?’ Rey asked him softly. ‘Where do we go from here?’

Desperately, Ben stepped closer to her. He pulled her into his arms and held her against his chest.

‘Rey... Rey, Rey... it’s still between us... it always will be...’

But Rey shook her head, even as she looped her arms around Ben’s waist and held him closer. ‘There’s a reason I never left here. Never went to Russia, never became a dancer,’ she whispered. ‘And there’s a reason you left... why you stopped writing... why you plan to marry someone else...’

‘Rey -’

‘It will always haunt us, you know?’ Rey carried on, even as Ben’s fingers tightened in her hair with a bruising grip. ‘Every time you look at me, you remember the truth. And when I look at you, so do I. And we’ll never let that truth go. We’ll hold onto it and it will fester between us. And then we’ll be nothing more than what they warned us we would be... just another sorry chapter in the Skywalker story.’

‘Rey, no -’

‘There’s a reason we’re always so angry around one another, Ben...’ Rey carried on, pulling up the back of Ben’s shirt and laying her hand, cool and soft, onto the heated skin of his lower back. ‘There’s a reason we haven’t spoken in years, beyond calls about Leia, or about the business. There’s a reason - beyond wanting to hurt me - that you want to destroy the stream. You can blame the past all you want but we played our part too... we’ve just never admitted it.’

‘I admitted it,’ Ben suddenly exhaled, the words rushed. He bit back a moan as Rey ran her hands up the planes of his back. ‘I admitted it then. I told them all.’

‘I know,’ Rey said softly. ‘I know you did. But that’s not what I meant... I didn’t mean...  _ that.  _ I meant about us... about what we did after it happened...’

Ben’s fingers ran up to Rey’s scalp, and he pulled her head back so that she was forced to look him in the eyes. They blazed with an intense sort of longing that took her breath away. ‘You should have let me take the blame,’ he said, and there was bitterness on his tongue. ‘You should have let me do it. You shouldn’t have had to bear the burden on your own. You shouldn’t have taken the blame.’

‘It made sense then,’ Rey told him, and she gasped a little as Ben moved his hands to her legs, pulling her up so that she sat on the table before him. He pressed himself between her open legs, and Rey felt a deep thrum of pleasure at the feel of him so close. ‘It still makes sense now, when you think about it.’

‘Nothing about it made sense,’ Ben replied, pushing her slowly, so that her back touched the cold wood of the tabletop. He leaned over her, nuzzling her neck and intertwining his fingers with her own. ‘It doesn’t make sense now. This,’ he squeezed her fingers and kissed her shoulder. ‘This is the only thing that has ever made sense to me.’

Rey closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of him. Ben sighed against her skin, reaching for her shirt and pushing it up, so that her stomach was bare. She opened her eyes again, watching as he trailed his fingers over her skin gently, contentment in his face as he watched her shiver beneath him.

‘You were right, what you said earlier... we were just two stupid kids. How I felt about you... and I never said a word...’ he muttered. Abruptly, he placed a kiss to her lower belly, and Rey bit on her lip to keep from crying out.

Somewhere, in the back of Rey’s mind, a thought flared at Ben’s words.  _ He never said a word. But he wrote them. A whole box of them.  _

‘I was just a stupid kid too,’ she told him, reaching a hand toward him and cupping his cheek. 

He kissed her palm, before leaning over her completely, his nose brushing hers. She let her legs lock behind him, pulling him closer, and he breathed out gently on her skin.

‘I don’t want to be stupid about us anymore, Rey.’

Rey nodded, the grey slipping away as Ben kissed her once more. This time he was gentle, this time he was sweet. This time his kiss was strawberry red and sky blue, the colours of a hopeful summer day. 

‘Tell me the truth,’ Ben whispered between kisses. ‘Don’t let it fester between us. Tell me what happened.’

Rey’s head was dizzy, spinning as Ben kissed her on the table, his hands now pulling at the buttons of her shirt, baring her skin beneath him.

‘I killed them,’ she whispered dazedly, moaning as Ben’s hands worked the last button, pushing her blouse open and kissing a trail down her neck. ‘I killed them.’

‘No,’ Ben muttered, ‘Tell me the truth, Rey. What  _ really  _ happened. Not what Leia and Luke told us what happened.’

‘We killed them,’ Rey exhaled. ‘We killed them both.’

‘Yes.’

Her breath caught in her throat as Ben bit gently into the upper skin of her breast. 

‘We killed them both,’ Rey said again, arching her back towards his mouth. 

‘Yes, we did,’ he said, his voice low. ‘We killed them both.’

Rey looked up at Ben, meeting his eyes and feeling a frisson run down her spine under his gaze.

For a moment they stared at one another, before Ben kissed her again.

‘We should talk,’ he muttered, as Rey shifted her body closer to his. She pulled him down for another kiss, letting the veil of rainbow fall over them once more, temporarily banishing the grey in the feel of Ben’s mouth on hers.

‘Tomorrow,’ she whispered back, kissing him fervently, and Ben growled, low in his throat, crowding her on the tabletop and pinning her to the woodwork.

Rey meant it. Tomorrow they would talk. Maybe it would go well, or maybe it wouldn’t. It didn’t matter... it was them, and the results were always the same.

Tomorrow she would pull away.

And tomorrow he would let her.

***

_ She stands with Rose under the arbor, and Rose points to her house in amazement. _

_ ‘You live there?’ She gapes, and Rey nods. _

_ ‘Yes.’ _

_ ‘But... but it’s so close to the Solo house?’ Rose looks confused. ‘All this empty land and the houses are right on top of each other? My Mom told me the families used to be close, but I had no idea it was like this.’ _

_ Rey shrugs. Rose looks pretty tonight, in her sunflower yellow dress, her hair in shining ringlets.  _

_ ‘You must see Ben all the time,’ Rose says, and Rey looks at her sharply. _

_ ‘I hardly see him at all,’ she lies quickly. Carefully, she casts a glance in his direction.  _

_ He’s standing by the bandstand Leia had specially constructed for his birthday party. He’s in a crowd of people, Bazine hanging off his arm, and Rey bites down an unpleasant surge of jealousy. _

_ It’s his birthday, she tells herself. He should enjoy his party.  _

_ She stares at him a fraction of a second more than she should though, and Ben, looking up, catches her eye. His face softens instantly, and something inside Rey relaxes as it always does whenever she sees him. A moment passes between them, and Rey sends him a smile, which he instantly returns.  _

_ She loves his smile. Loves how it slowly unfurls across his cheeks, genuine and without guile, when he sees her.  _

_ She is the only one who can make him smile like that, she thinks. That smile belongs to her. _

_ ‘Rey? Rey?’ Rose’s voice cuts into Rey’s thoughts, and she turns back to her almost dazedly.  _

_ ‘Why are you staring at Ben?’ Rose asks, and Rey startles with guilt. _

_ They can’t let anyone find out. It’s their secret. _

_ ‘I wasn’t staring at Ben,’ Rey says quickly. ‘I was looking at Bazine. I like her dress.’ _

_ It isn’t a lie. Bazine looks sculpted and elegant in a lavender shade, her hair swept up, heels on her feet. She suits Ben, in his well cut slacks and jacket, and Rey feels a dart of pain. _

_ ‘Bazine?’ Rose asks, her interest diverted. Rey watches as Rose peers through the crowd at Bazine. ‘I hear things between Ben and Bazine aren’t so peachy at the moment,’ she says abruptly. ‘Apparently Ben has his eye on someone else.’ _

_ ‘Who?’ Rey asks, trying to keep her voice calm and clear. _

_ ‘I don’t know,’ Rose muses. ‘But she must be something if he’s passing Bazine over.’ _

_ ‘They look happy enough tonight,’ Rey replies. _

_ ‘Well, looks aren’t everything,’ Rose says with all the knowledge of her seventeen years. ‘Speaking of looks, who is it that keeps staring at you from your house?’ _

_ ‘What?’ Rey’s heart suddenly starts pounding, and she looks frantically over her shoulder towards her home. ‘There’s no one there. There can’t be. My grandfather is sick... in bed...’ _

_ ‘Oh,’ Rose sounds surprised. ‘I thought I saw someone looking at you from the window is all.’ _

_ ‘Maybe it’s one of the nurses,’ Rey suggests, her mouth dry. ‘Amilyn might have been checking on me.’ _

_ But Rose only shrugs. ‘Looked like a man to me, but then, the lanterns here are giving everything shadows. It was probably the nurse. Look, here come Poe and Finn.’ _

_ Rose brightens as her boyfriend appears, and Finn kisses her before turning to Rey in surprise. _

_ ‘Hey!’ He says warmly. ‘Thought you weren’t allowed out?’ _

_ ‘Well, I’m not really ‘out’, just next door,’ Rey explains, gesturing to her house. ‘I live there.’ _

_ Finn nods, turning his attention back to Rose, and leaving Rey with Poe. _

_ Poe looks Rey up and down slowly, before winking at her. _

_ ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ He remarks, and Rey flushes under his gaze. _

_ ‘Told me what?’ _

_ He grins at her, leaning close. In his hand is a cup, and he offers it to Rey. _

_ ‘That there’s always another party.’ _

_ She sips at the drink and feels alcohol burn her throat. She splutters and coughs, so much so that she hears Poe laugh, and sees Ben look over towards her. _

_ She meets his gaze, and feels the beginning of a small knot of worry. _

_ For Ben is no longer smiling, and is looking at Poe with an ill-concealed rage. _

_ Rey panics.  _

_ No one can find out, she tells herself. It’s their secret. Ben can’t react like this.  _

_ ‘Let’s go somewhere quieter,’ Poe suggests, and Rey nods.  _

_ He takes her hand, and begins to lead her away from the crowd.  _

  
  


  
  


  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still no closer on what happened at the stream but at least we all know who killed Palps and Vader now, so there’s that.


	12. Always You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: 
> 
> Attempted rape
> 
> Description of physical violence
> 
> Sex between a sixteen and seventeen year old shown (I’m in the U.K. where sixteen is the age of consent so all entirely legal but I’m adding the disclaimer here for those who have an aversion to this kind of thing).
> 
> I don’t like how Poe is portrayed here because I don’t think it fits in with his canonical character and if I could go back in time and rewrite it as someone else I would. I probably will at another time. This is my mistake and I own up to it. Although I write AU, I like to keep to canon as much as I can where characters are concerned and this just doesn’t work.

_ Somewhere in the distance, Rey can hear voices begin to ring out in song. The tune is high and merry, the singers uneven but bright, accompanied by the band, who play in an upbeat sort of tempo.  _

_ Happy birthday, Rey realises, her stomach sinking. They’re singing ‘happy birthday’ to Ben. She isn’t there to join in, she thinks in a mild panic. She isn’t there to see his face lit by candles, flickering in the evening air. She isn’t there to see that embarrassed smile flutter across his face. She isn’t there to meet his eyes above the crowd, to whisper a private birthday greeting of her own. _

_ Instead, she’s here, pressed up against the back of a fence, with Poe’s hands wandering over her skin, his lips ghosting across her shoulders, even though she keeps asking him to stop, keeps asking him to take her back to the party. _

_ ‘Poe, please,’ she whispers again, but Poe merely grins into her skin, pushing her a little harder against the picket fence.  _

_ ‘You’re perfect,’ he says, and she can hear the slur to his words, can smell the sweet and sour tang of alcohol on his breath. ‘You and me... Finn and Rose... it all just makes sense, yeah? Come on, Rey, Finn and Rose do this all the time -’ _

_ ‘I’m not them...’ she begins to protest, trying to push his hands away once more. ‘Please let me go. Please. I don’t want you to...’ _

_ ‘You will once I start,’ Poe promises. ‘It will feel good, I swear.’ _

_ ‘No,’ she whimpers again, and Poe’s hand clenches on her skin tightly. _

_ ‘No?’ he repeats, almost in disbelief. ‘If you don’t want this, why are you wearing such a low-cut dress then, Rey?’ He gives an ugly, drunken laugh, and Rey tries to move, tries to run. But she’s still pinned hard to the fence, Poe’s hand like an iron grip on her arms, and she knows she’s trapped. He’s bigger and stronger than she is. He’s drunk and unlikely to listen to reason. More than that, he’s led her to an abandoned part of the Solo’s land, away from the garden and the prying eyes of others. _

_ There’s no one here to help her. _

_ There’s no one here to miss her.  _

_ The panic she suddenly feels is staggering, and tears sting her eyes. _

_ ‘Please,’ she says again. ‘Please don’t do this.’ _

_ In the background, applause rings out, and Rey closes her eyes. Ben will have blown out his candles, she realises. He’ll be standing there, Bazine at his side, receiving congratulations after congratulations from his guests. He’ll be too busy to look for her, too busy to realise she isn’t there, that Poe has dragged her away.  _

_ Poe’s hand tears her dress, but Rey keeps her eyes tightly closed. Ben, she thinks miserably. Ben, she thinks again, as Poe fumbles with his trousers. _

_ He’ll be cutting the cake, she tells herself, comforting herself with thoughts of the mundane. Maybe he’ll even taste a bit... will it be chocolate or vanilla? Rey asks herself. Or will it be carrot? Maybe strawberry? She imagines thick icing and smooth buttercream. Pictures dainty forks and fine china plates. She can see the balloons in the background, can see them waving on the breeze. Most of all she can see Ben’s face, can imagine him perfectly, his face made up in pleasure as he takes a bite of his birthday cake, crumbs at the corner of his mouth, a smile on his lips. _

_ Ben, she thinks again, fighting down her tears. _

_ Poe is still fumbling, still holding her arms so tight that Rey knows she’ll find bruises in the morning. He’s drunk and struggling, and even though she’s gone still and slack in his arms he still has her pinned tightly to the fence. He’s torn her dress, her beautiful dress, the first party-dress she’s ever owned, and the bodice is hanging in useless scraps from her shoulders. She’s shaking and scared and her eyes are still tightly closed and - _

_ ‘You fucker,’ comes a dark, dangerous voice. Rey’s eyes fly open, and she sees Ben there, a few steps away from where Poe has her against the fence. He looks livid, his hands clenched into fists, a flash of silver in his hand. ‘You absolute fucker,’ Ben says again, and she doesn’t have time to move, doesn’t have time to call his name, when Ben launches himself at Poe and tackles him to the ground.  _

_ No longer supported by Poe’s arms, Rey slides to the ground, coming to a sitting position in the mud. Her hands are shaking badly and her lips are quivering, and she watches, breathless and terrified, as Ben and Poe roll in the mud next to her, fists raining punches and arms lashing out. _

_ ‘Ben, stop,’ she whispers, her voice hoarse, but she knows Ben can’t hear her. _

_ He’s lost to a storm within himself, Rey realises. He’s giving way to all of the anger and hate flowing through his blood, and can’t hear her, can’t think of her at all in that moment beyond a need to protect. It’s primal and pulsing and Rey feels her heart beating fast, hears her breath coming out in ragged gasps. _

_ He’s pummeling Poe into the ground, one hand in Poe’s hair, the other throwing punch after punch into his body.  _

_ He’s going to kill him, Rey thinks. He’s going to kill Poe here, right in front of her.  _

_ ‘Ben,’ she says again. ‘Ben, stop.’ _

_ But he doesn’t, and then Rey feels horror strike her when she sees that earlier flash of silver once more. It’s in Ben’s hand, suddenly held tight to Poe’s throat. _

_ A knife, Rey realises. He has a knife. Instinctively, she knows this is the knife he was using to cut his birthday cake. He must have been cutting his cake when he couldn’t find her and so left his party to search for her. And when he found her here, under Poe’s hands, the knife was still in his hand and -  _

_ She watches, almost fascinated, as Ben lifts Poe’s bloodied head from the ground, the knife still against his throat. _

_ ‘No one touches her,’ she hears Ben saying, as she hugs her knees to her chest. ‘No one lays a finger on her, you hear?’ _

_ Poe makes an incomprehensible noise, and Ben presses the knife tighter to his Adam’s apple. ‘I should kill you for laying a hand on her. I should kill you for daring to defile her. I want to kill you. I really do.’ _

_ ‘Ben,’ another voice, firm and loud and crisp, sounds out, and Rey turns in it's direction.  _

_ Leia. It’s Leia, her face white, staring at them all. In one quick moment, Rey sees Leia’s eyes sweep over Ben and Poe in the mud before resting on her by the fence, her arms scratched and dress torn.  _

_ ‘Put the knife down, Ben,’ Leia instructs, her voice an order, but Ben doesn’t move, the knife held firmly in his hand. ‘I said put it down,’ Leia tries again, and now there is a note of panic to her voice.  _

_ Struggling, adrenaline pounding through her bloodstream, Rey brings herself onto all fours, starting a slow crawl through the mud. Her hands are tense and painful, and every movement has her body wincing with pain, but she won’t stop. She needs to do this. Needs to put her hands on him, and bring him back to himself. _

_ Bring him back to her. _

_ When she reaches Ben, Rey lays first a finger on his hand, before allowing her palm to encompass his. He flinches at her touch, before looking up and meeting her eyes. Even in his wild state, he seems to recognise her, and she nods at him, licking her lips so that she can speak. _

_ ‘Ben,’ she implores him lightly. ‘Ben, it's okay now. It’s okay.’ _

_ ‘He was going to hurt you,’ Ben replies, and it's his voice, his. The voice she knows and loves. The voice from the stream, and not the voice that threatened Poe. _

_ ‘You stopped him,’ Rey whispers back. ‘I’m okay. I really am.’ _

_ For a moment she keeps her hand on his, staring into his eyes.  _

_ ‘Rey,’ Ben whispers. ‘Rey.’ _

_ She nods again, before easing the knife from his fingers. His hand immediately goes slack, and he releases Poe, falling into a slump in the mud. _

_ She keeps the knife in her hand, before falling beside him. _

_ ‘You touch her again,’ she hears Ben say loudly. ‘And I’lI finish this job, you understand? I’ll kill you, I really will.’ _

_ Silence falls, and Rey looks up. She inhales sharply when she sees that it isn’t just Leia who is staring at them, horror-struck. _

_ No. The entire party, dragged away by the noise, have watched Ben and Poe tussle on the ground. The entire party watched as Ben held a knife to Poe’s throat. And the entire party saw Rey claim the knife from Ben, their eyes only for each other. _

_ They know, Rey realises. They all know. _

_ But before she has time to process this information, Leia’s voice snaps into action. _

_ ‘Luke, clear the kid on the ground up. Get him into the house. Han, deal with Ben. I’ll deal with the girl, I’ll see that she’s -’ _

_ But Ben stands, shaking his head at his mother, before he turns on his heels and disappears into the darkness of the land surrounding them.  _

_ ‘Ben!’ Leia shouts after him. ‘Ben!’ _

_ But he’s gone, the sound of his footsteps first fading before disappearing altogether, and as soon as silence falls it’s like a spell being broken. The crowd erupts with noise and activity, people rushing forward to help Poe, people calling out after Ben, people rushing towards Leia. It’s panic and pandemonium, and Rey stands quietly, holding the bodice of her dress up and backing away from the crowd. She can hear Leia now calling for her, but the crowd is thick and Rey is light on her feet, carried by adrenaline and a desire to be away from them all. She slowly turns away from the garden, walking quietly in the same direction Ben went, marvelling at the darkness that falls on her skin as she moves away from the light. _

_ The ground is soft beneath her feet and the sky open above her head, and a sort of peace washes over her as she follows the path she knows so well to the stream, and to Ben. _

_ She smiles in the moonlight, stepping out of her shoes and abandoning them to the mud, her head held high as she walks towards the only happiness she has ever known. _

_ She’s so intent, that she doesn’t even notice she still has the knife in her hand. _

_ *** _

Rey was naked on the countertop, Ben’s hands interlocked with her own, one of her breasts in his mouth. He was kissing and sucking, licking and biting, and her breath was coming from her mouth in ragged gasps, words falling from her lips, incomprehensible but encouraging. She’d forgotten how wonderful this could be, had forgotten how Ben felt against her, had forgotten the miracle of his lips upon her body. She’d forgotten it all, while remembering every last moment, a beautiful paradox that left her treasuring every second they had together, while always leaving her wanting that little bit more. Another ragged gasp fell from her lips and she clenched her fingers within Ben’s, so tightly that he pulled away from her, looking down at her to meet her gaze.

For a moment they held eyes, neither of them speaking. It was beautiful and wild and profound and something in Rey’s heart seemed to melt, staring at him like this.

‘Ben,’ she whispered. ‘Ben, it’s you.’

He seemed to understand her meaning, because he pulled her up and held her tightly to his chest, and through his shirt she could hear the pounding beat of his heart, regular and even, and in that moment, entirely for her.

‘I’ve thought about you every day for twelve years,’ Ben murmured into her ear. ‘Every day, over all this time, I’ve thought about you.’

She sighed, pulling away from his chest to look him in the eye. ‘I’ve thought about you too,’ she admitted. ‘Every day, I’ve thought about you too.’

She watched as he exhaled slowly at her words, as though something held tight and painfully within him was released with her admission. 

‘Can we go upstairs?’ Ben asked her, and something in his voice reminded her sharply of the teenage Ben, watching her dance in the stream. ‘I’d like to take you upstairs. I’d like to do this properly. Let me do this properly for you, Rey.’

She nodded mutely, and Ben stood with her in his arms, encouraging her to lock her legs around his waist. He planted soft kisses on her mouth as he turned for the stairs, holding her tight and whispering gentle words against her skin.  _ I want this. I want you. It’s always been you. It will always be you.  _ And Rey, too far gone to question them, simply nodded, whispering them back into his ear. 

He laid her on his bed without closing the door behind them, and somewhere in Rey’s mind she marvelled at the sheer  _ audacity  _ of their actions. It was them, after all. The last Skywalker and the heir of Palpatine, coming together near the very place where their families had been torn apart. She thought of Leia, of Anakin and of her Grandfather, remembered their warnings and dire predictions for the future. Most of all she remembered Luke, recalling his calm demeanour as he’d stared at them both and prophesied doom.  _ ‘No good will come of this,’  _ he’d told them, before his eyes had settled on Ben _. ‘She’s a Palpatine, Ben.’ _

She shuddered at the memory, and Ben immediately lay on the bed next to her, wrapping her in his arms, coating her with both himself and his concern.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked softly, and she nodded, reaching over to cup his cheek.

‘Yes,’ she whispered back. ‘Yes, I’m just...’ she stared at him. ‘There’s no one to stop us, Ben. No one to left to break us apart.’

‘No,’ he whispered back. ‘No. It’s just us now. But then, Rey, it’s always just been us.’

She paused, biting her lip. ‘Your fiancée -’ 

Ben immediately held a finger to her lips. ‘Rey, there is no fiancée.’

For a moment, she stared across at him, frozen in shock. ‘What... what do you mean?’

He shook his head, a sudden warmth in his eyes. ‘There isn’t one. I’m not engaged. I never have been.’

She continued to stare at him, his finger still resting gently on her lips. ‘But... but Leia told me all about her... she showed me pictures...’

Abruptly, Ben looked uncomfortable. ‘My mother was dying,’ he said softly. ‘She worried so much about me. She worried so much about you. I think, by the end, she regretted some of her...’ he paused. ‘I think she regretted what she did to you. To me. To us.’

Rey inhaled sharply. ‘She never told me that.’

‘She would write to me,’ Ben said, trailing his finger from her lips to rest on her shoulder. ‘She would tell me to come home. That it was time I settled down. Time I got married, time that I had children. The last few years of her life...’ Ben swallowed hard. ‘She wrote how sorry she was. That she was scared I was lonely. That she was scared she’d ruined my life.’

A lone tear suddenly escaped from Ben’s eye, and Rey brushed it away with her hand. 

‘I had a friend at work... I sent Mom pictures of us together... told her we were getting married. It seemed to make her happy. Seemed to give her peace. I’m glad I could do that for her. Glad I could give her that comfort.’

‘Ben...’ Rey said miserably. ‘Oh, Ben.’

He looked at her, and there was guilt in his expression. ‘I was hoping... hoping she would tell you,’ he admitted softly. ‘I was hoping to get a reaction from you. Something other than the usual updates you sent about Mom, or the business. I wanted you to tell me not to do it. I wanted you to call, and ask me to come home to you. I wanted so much for you to want me again but...’ he paused, grief etched into the lines of his face. ‘You never did. It was like you didn’t care. Like you moved on.’

Rey felt tears sting her own eyes. ‘Ben, I never moved on. How could I? I thought that you... I thought you had... and Leia was always saying how happy you were... how content you were and I -’

‘I was never happy, I was never content,’ Ben interjected. ‘Not without you. You and me... we belong together. We always have. From the moment I first saw you, down by the stream, I knew you belonged to me. I knew it. I felt it.’

‘I felt it too,’ Rey said. ‘I felt it too.’

He kissed her then, a long, searching kiss, full of love and desire and a need to erase a messy past. And she kissed him back, clutching him to her, pulling him closer and closer until she wasn’t sure where she began and he ended.

‘My mother knew I loved you,’ he said suddenly. ‘She knew. I can’t believe she never told you.’

Rey paused, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. ‘The day she died...’ she began. ‘The day she died, she sent me to the attic. She asked me to find a box. I thought she wanted a picture of her mothers, but actually, she wanted me to find something.’

‘To find what?’

‘Your letters to me,’ Rey admitted shyly. ‘The letters you wrote me, back when we were young. She must have found them and kept them all, she put them in a wooden box, the one she left me in her will, with the -’

‘- the sparrow and the songbird carved onto the lid,’ Ben finished, looking down at her with amazement in his eyes. ‘She gave you my letters?’

‘I’ve been reading them,’ Rey admitted. ‘Reading them all. You... you loved me, Ben. You really loved me.’

He stared at her, brushing the hair from her eyes before kissing her gently on the lips. ‘Of course I loved you,’ he breathed. ‘I love you still. I’ve loved you every day from the day we first met. Of course I loved you, Rey. I’m always going to love you.’

Something in Rey gave way at his words, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘You never told me,’ she whispered. ‘This is the first time... I never knew...’

But at that, he shook his head. ‘Rey... Rey, my Rey... you knew. Yes, you did,’ he carried on when she shook her head. ‘You didn’t need me to tell you. You didn’t need a box of letters from the past. You knew. Remember that night, by the stream?’ he asked her, and her cheeks flushed a dull red. He smiled at her gently. ‘You knew,’ he said again. ‘You’ve always known, Rey. You’ve always known.’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, pulling him to her body once more. ‘Yes, I knew Ben.’

And she closed her eyes as he kissed her, drifting down the stream of time, remembering the first time they’d lain like this in a stream of mud and water.

***

_ She finds him by the stream, exactly where she thought she might. He’s sitting on the furthest bank, staring at his hands in the moonlight. Hands that are bruised and bloodied and covered in dirt. Her own hands are hardly any better, but that doesn’t stop her from kneeling in the water in front of him, taking his hands and lowering them into the stream that surrounds them. He watches her with dark eyes as she washes the blood from his palms, before turning them over and washing the dirt from his fingers. The water is cool and refreshing and cleansing, and he sighs gently as she moves closer to him, moving his hands from hers and resting them on her waist. _

_ He looks at the torn bodice of her dress and that old darkness crosses his eyes, the lingering remnants of the earlier storm. _

_ ‘Don’t ever wear this again,’ he says lightly. ‘Please, I can’t bear it. If you wear this, I’ll think of him and what he tried to do and...’ _

_ She shushes him softly, shaking her head and bending to rest her lips on his. It isn’t a kiss so much as a joining of flesh, and he sighs against her, his body relaxing a little. She moves away, raising her arms, and he must understand immediately, because the dress is pulled from her body in seconds, thrown into a forgotten heap in the distance. She’s naked from the waist up, and his eyes roam over her hungrily, and she finds she likes him looking at her, likes the feelings within her at the desire written all over his face. He raises his own arms, and she works at the buttons of his shirt, pulling his own clothing from him just as he took hers from her.  _

_ They are equals in this as they are in everything else, Rey thinks. This is the way it’s meant to be. This is the way it has always been between them. _

_ She moves onto his lap, wrapping an arm around his neck before moving one of his hands into the water and then onto her shoulder. She sits for a moment as he washes her, taking away the dirt from earlier on, the dirt she’s accumulated over years and years, if she’s entirely honest with herself. This is an end and a beginning all at once, and in this stream they are both made clean. He rubs the dirt and mud from her back and shoulders and stomach and neck, before settling on her breasts, and he hesitates momentarily, before she leans to kiss him again. _

_ ‘I’m yours,’ she tells him. ‘I’m always yours.’ _

_ He moves slowly, hauling her up into his arms before latching his mouth onto her chest, and she gasps at the pleasure that builds instantly within her. She pulls at his hair and at his hands, and he looks up, meeting her gaze before rolling them both over so that she is pinned underneath him in the rushing water of the stream. He kisses her, hard and demanding, and she finds herself kissing him back, rising up as he pushes down, clinging to him as he clutches at her.  _

_ ‘I’ve wanted this so much,’ he tells her between kisses. ‘I’ve thought of you like this since the day we met. You have no idea how much I’ve wanted you.’ _

_ She doesn’t let him talk for long, returning her mouth to his and kissing him again and again. There’s something so natural to their coupling, so beautiful and innocent and loving that she sighs in his arms, and he reaches down to unbutton his trousers, before sliding a hand between her legs and sighing deeply. Within seconds, her petticoat and torn stockings are ripped away, and he lowers himself to her, the water around them the only blanket they need. When he first slides inside of her, she bites her lip at the small stab of pain, and he stills, looking down at her fretfully. _

_ ‘I can stop,’ he whispers. ‘I can stop this. I don’t want to hurt you.’ _

_ ‘You don’t hurt me,’ she whispers back. ‘It will hurt me more if you stop.’ _

_ He kisses her softly, moving slowly, and she marvels at the feel of him inside of her. Marvels at the water on her back and the stars in the sky and the trees waving silently in the breeze around them. There’s mud in her hair and dirt in her fingernails but she doesn’t care, holding him too her more closely and losing herself to him and the sensations he arouses inside of her. _

_ She’s too far gone in that moment to see the eyes in a break in the trees. Too far gone to hear the whispered voices. Too far gone to hear footsteps in their direction. _

_ Too far gone, really, to remember the knife she left on the other side of the stream. _

_ And too far gone to see a hand reach into the water and claim it. _

  
  


__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *checks outline*
> 
> So, I still have to round up - what Leia did to separate Ben and Rey
> 
> Why Ben and Rey killed Anakin and Palpatine.
> 
> Why Ben and Rey stayed apart for twelve years.
> 
> Who killed Padme in the past.
> 
> *checks notes again*  
> *facepalms*  
> *opens twitter to escape my troubles*  
> *searches for fic recs*


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